computer not recognizing optical drives

[mikey751]

I recently bought a 2nd hd for my system. When re-configuring my ide setup I put all my drives as master on separate ide channels. The listing is as follows

Primary IDE (Promise ATA100): Quantum 60GB set as master
Seconadry IDE (Promise ATA100): Maxtor 40GB set as master

Primary IDE: Pioneer DVD-ROM set as master
Seconadry IDE: Plexwriter CDRW 16/10/40a set as master

This is on an Asus A7V133 mobo with the Promise Ultra ATA100 ide controller.

With this setup the computer would NOT recognize the CDRW or the DVD. Any reason why this is?

I then tried a new ide configuration as follows.

Primary IDE (Promise ATA100): Quantum 60GB set as master
Seconadry IDE (Promise ATA100): Maxtor 40GB set as master, Pioneer DVD-ROM set as slave

Primary IDE: Plexwriter CDRW set as master

The computer now recognizes all drives fine. My Question is (as stated above)why do the optical drives not get recognized with the 1st configuration???

[fatboyjim]

ER?! I'm sorry but you can't set more than 1 drive as MASTER on ONE IDE CHANNEL?!

It has to be like this

PRIMARY IDE: 1 Master and 1 Slave
SECONDARY IDE: 1 Master and 1 Slave

NO OTHER WAY! (Unless you set them all to CABLE SELECT)

[Cricket]

Hi mikey751,

When you say you set your hard drives to master on each IDE channel, do you mean you set the jumpers to master or you placed the hard drive on the black IDE connector on a 80 wire ATA100 IDE cable and set the jumpers to CS (cable select)?

What kind of IDE cables are you using for the hard drives and the optical drives? How are the optical drives jumpered? If you're using 80 wire ATA100 IDE cables on the optical drives, are the drives set to CS? If you're using a 40 wire IDE cable, are the optical drives set to master/slave?

Cricket

[mikey751]

Sorry cricket. Should have explained the setup a little more.

I jumpered all the drives to master on each of the ide channels. I used 40 pin 80 conductor ide cables for the hd's and 40 pin 40 conductor cables for the optical drives.

Now on the mobo (asus A7V133) there are 4 ide connections. The 1st two say "primary ide" and "secondary ide". The 2nd pair of ide connectors say "primary Ultra ATA100 ide" and "secondary Ultra ATA100 ide". Now does this mean I have 4 separate ide channels to use? If so why would I not be able to use 4 separate devices set as master?

Please excuse my ignorance with this stuff, I'm a little out of touch. My last computer was a 486!!!

[fatboyjim]

Well, I'm not sure if that is actually possible but still:

Are you telling us you have 4 connectors on the motherboard for IDE? Sorry I've just never come across this before

[mikey751]

Yeah, The mobo has 4 actual connectors for ide devices. I used to seeing only 2 connectors. Asus has another model of that mobo. It's the A7V133-C. This board has only 2 ide connectors (regular too, not labeled Ultra ATA100).

[fatboyjim]

OH right, I've never heard of 4 IDE connectors before

So sorry for the first post - just a misunderstanding. Anyway, I don't see any problem with doing what you've done but why don't you just set ALL of the jumpers to "Cable Select"

That should work a treat

[audiyoda]

Two of the connectors are Promise controllers for ATA-100. The other two are standard IDE controllers.

Are you sure under the first configuration you didn't have the optical drives on the Promise controller? Because the Promise controller should not recognize optical drives configured for master -- only slave.

-Craig

[Michael]

This Asus uses the onboard Promise Raid chip, however it can only support Raid 0.

I know that Highpoint has had issues with using opticals on their Raid controller (eide 3 and 4); officially, Highpoint (as well as Promise I believe) does not support such a configuration. So, your first setup was exactly as a board with a Raid controller should be configured. Are you sure all the cables and jumpers were hooked up properly? Ideally, you want that DVD off the same channel as your hdd (4 channels, 4 devices....Ide 1 and 2 should handle both opticals without a problem). Did you try both opticals as slaves on Eide 1 and 2? Or, hook 'em both up to the same channel as master/slave (they're both ata/33, so you needn't worry about any performance hits). Good luck.

[mikey751]

Ok, here's what I did. After the optical drives weren't seen by the computer I moved the DVD drive to the same ide channel as my 2nd HD (installed on the secondary Ultra ATA 100 controller). Now all the drives are visible! Why is it working now and not before?

Again here's my current IDE setup.

Primary IDE: N/A
Seconady IDE: Plexwriter 16/10/40a (set as master)

Primary Ultra ATA 100 controller: 1st HD (set as master)
Secondary Ultra ATA 100 controller: 2nd HD (set as master), DVD-ROM (set as slave)

Is this an ok setup?

[Michael]

It is except your hard drive that's on the same channel as your dvd will run it's BURST RATES at ata/33 (assuming that's what your dvd is, and there are precious few, if any, that aren't ata/33). You probably won't notice any real difference, I ran my ata/100 hd slaved to a cdrom for over a year and didn't notice any real performance hits. Still, you should get whatcha pay for and that dvd should run on your eide 1.

[mikey751]

Found out what the problem was with the computer not seeing the optical drives. The problem was in the via ide driver settings. It was set to 'Secondary IDE channel only'. Changed it to 'Both ide channels enabled' and then connected the drives back to the original configuration and it works great.


Thanks for the tips!