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    Wendy225's Avatar
    Wendy225 Posts: 240, Reputation: 4
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    #1

    Mar 8, 2006, 10:09 AM
    Cdrom
    I just built a Computer with a Biostar M7ncd Ultra nforce2 socket A motherboard, and a new Sempron 3300 with 1 gig of memory, I can't get it to recognize or find my CDROM, at the startup screen when it searches, it shows up, and also in the BIOS< but when I get to windows it's not in explorer or my computer or anywhere I go to find it, also when it asks for the windows CD ro install drivers, all it shows are my C and A drives.

    I made it a master slave, then tried it with it's own new cable as a secondary master, it still shows up at startup and bios but not when I get to windows.

    If anyone can help, I would appreciate it, thanks
    Wendy
    StuMegu's Avatar
    StuMegu Posts: 576, Reputation: 64
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    #2

    Mar 8, 2006, 11:45 AM
    Have you looked in "disk management" within "computer management"? If it's not getting a drive letter for some reason you should still be able to see it there - right click my computer and select "manage" to bring up computer management.
    Wendy225's Avatar
    Wendy225 Posts: 240, Reputation: 4
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    #3

    Mar 8, 2006, 05:10 PM
    Thanks for the help, what I did, I reformatted the hard drive, I connect the hard drive alone, it detects it, I connect both, 1 as master and the other as secondary master, it then won't recognize the hard drive, I've tried every combination, still it won't recognize both at the same time, even as Primary Master and slave, I can't go to my computer as the HD is now blank.
    It has to be something small I am overlooking.
    But as I listed above, all I am doing is hooking the cable with the blue end to the blue connector on the Motherboard, then the other end to the hard drive, then taking a second cable with 2 black ends and connecting 1 to the secondary connector on the motherboard and the other end to the CDrom making both masters on primary and secondary.

    Ive tried both on Primary as Master and slave, still it won't recognize both at the same time.
    cajalat's Avatar
    cajalat Posts: 469, Reputation: 66
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    #4

    Mar 8, 2006, 06:36 PM
    There is a jumper on the hard drive (or CDROM) that determines whether the drive is settable via CS (Cable Select), Master, or Slave. Have you checked that to make sure that the jumper is set to CS on BOTH devices so that the master/slave relationship is determined by the cable? This might be your problem.

    Casey
    Wendy225's Avatar
    Wendy225 Posts: 240, Reputation: 4
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    #5

    Mar 8, 2006, 10:26 PM
    I have been setting them, this way, when I put them both on the primary, I set hard drive as master primary and cdrom as primary slave, then I set the jumper on the back of the CDrom to slave.

    When I tried both as masters on primary and secondary, I set the cdrom as master.

    But I will try the Cdrom as CS and see what happens.
    cajalat's Avatar
    cajalat Posts: 469, Reputation: 66
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    #6

    Mar 9, 2006, 04:22 AM
    I would suggest that you set the jumper to CS on both devices. Then connect the hard drive to the master connector on the cable and the cdrom to the secondary connector on the cable. The cable should be something like this:

    MB-----------SL---MS

    If you'll notice the connector that plugs into the motherboard (MB) is further away from the other two connections and sometimes is BLUE. The other far end is the Master (MS) (BLACK) and the one in between is the Slave (SL) (Gray). When you set the jumper on the drive and cdrom to CS and connect them to the cable they'll become master/slave based on where they're plugged.

    I don't believe that if one is set to Master and the other to CS will solve your problem. You need to either set both to CS or to Master/Slave.

    Good luck

    Casey
    cajalat's Avatar
    cajalat Posts: 469, Reputation: 66
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    #7

    Mar 9, 2006, 04:54 AM
    Something just occurred to me... some cables DO NOT support Cable Select (CS). Do you know what kind of cable you have? If it is a 40 wire cable then chances are that CS will not work for you. You'll have to configure the drives to Master/Slave using the jumpers. If you have a cable that is 80 wires (i.e. the ends are colored blue/gray/black) then CS should work.

    I would play it safe and manually configure the devices as follows:

    - Set your hard drive to be Master using the jumper (MS)
    - Set your CDrom drive to Slave using the jumper (SL)
    - for a 40 wire
    -- Plug the hard drive in the center
    -- Plug the cdrom in the far end
    - for an 80 wire
    -- plug the hard drive in the black connector (far end)
    -- plug the cdrom in the gray connector (middle)

    40 vs 80: The difference is that if you look at the ribbon cable you can see there is 40 or 80 "wires" but BOTH cables have 40 pins on them at the connector. The additional 40 wires separate the other 40 that actually connect to the pins and are used for ground which reduces the interference between the active 40 pins. This allows you to use newer and higher speed IDE drives which are less tolerant to interference.

    Casey
    Wendy225's Avatar
    Wendy225 Posts: 240, Reputation: 4
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    #8

    Mar 9, 2006, 08:58 AM
    Thanks babe, I will have time to work on it late tonight or tomro and will post here how that worked out, 1 thing, I think I may have plugged the master drive into the end of cable, I will see and try what you suggest.

    Thanks

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