secondary IDE error

whazup

I'm having trouble with my secondary IDE, it all started when I added a second CD and a new HD, I got the HD working and then noticed that my computer wasn't picking up the CD players. The first thing I did was change my IDE cable, which did nothing. I'm wondering if the IDE port on the MB can be replaced or is there something I'm looking over. I'm going to throw this thing out my window. Thanks for any advice.

Out

 

I had a similar experience when I put in my new CDRW. I switched my old CD-ROM to the primary IDE so the burner would be all alone on the secondary. My HDD is a Mode4 device and refused to share the IDE channel with my Mode2 CD-ROM. I double-checked all jumpers and cables, but the CD-ROM just would not show up when it was set as slave to the HDD. I switched the CD-ROM back to the secondary IDE as a slave to the burner, and everything is happy. If it wasn't for the $$, I'd switch to SCSI in a skinny minute

For your situation, start with the basics. Make sure the jumpers on all the drives are set right. Most CD drives only have Cable Select (don't use), Master, and Slave settings. Several HDDs have settings for Master, Single (only drive on the cable), and Slave. They also have Cable Select, but again, don't use it. Once you're sure you've got the jumpers right, double check your connections and try again. If your still not getting results, try different arrangements, ie put the two HDDs on one cable and the two CDs on the other. Make sure that when you change the wires around that you adjust the jumpers to match. As long as all the drives are fairly recent, you should find a setup that allows them all to operate.

As far as replacing the IDE controller ... there are add-on cards that can do that. Promise is one of the better companies. They make PCI cards that can run HDDs. Most of the newer cards support IDE RAID functions, but there are still some basic UDMA-100 cards kicking around.

Hope it helps!

Brian