IDE controller bad?

[wildman124]

I have been searching and can't seem to find the answer I am looking for. My CD drive is currently not working. It appears that one of the connections where the IDE cables plug into the motherboard are not working. I swapped connections with the hard drive (somewhere I read suggested that I do that to test it) and now the hard drive does not work, but the CD drive does. Does this mean that I will now need a new "pci ide controller?" Should I hook both my hard drive and CD Drive to it? Any suggestions on which one to get? I have an older Dell Optiplex GX1 Pentium II system with just a 7 GB hard drive and a generic CD-R. Thanks.

[bailey]

its a possibility, did you try replaceing the cable ?

[wildman124]

No, but I swapped it with a good one with the hard drive with no changes, so I figured that the cable was OK.

[Cricket]

I would replace the IDE cable first. If the problem is still there, then I would go out and get a PCI controller card. You'll have to put your hard drive on the controller card and the optical drive on the one good on-board IDE controller.

:) Cricket

[wildman124]

Thanks Cricket. I tried a new cable with no change. I ordered a PCI IDE Controller from ZipZoomFly. I'll try that.