Slave Drive Autodetect

Hey all,

Well recently I purchased a DVD all in one combo drive. Work's beautifully and I am really happy with it. I have only one problem with it, which is, if I turn my computer on it will only detect my Primary CD drive and will not pick up the drive on Slave even though it is there and the light comes on during the boot. To get my system to detect it I have to restart my computer. If I restart my computer it is always detected but if I boot my computer up it will not so I have to restart.

This to me seems weird and my friend purchased the same drive as me and it works find on his computer he doesn’t need to restart and all. The IDE cable that I am using is not long enough so I had to move my two drive to the bottom racks of my case so that it would reach and even still I had to twist my IDE cable so it was up the right way. I am going to go and buy another IDE cable soon in case this could be the problem, probably a 60-90cm cable.

I have had a look at my BIOS screen and it says it Auto Detects my Slave on start up so I don't quite understand why it only detects on a restart.

If someone has some ideas could you please let me know? I would kind of like to sort this issue out now as it is a bit of a pain to have to restart all the time.

Thanks in advance,
Phill

 

Hi Phill

first port of call - confirm jumper settings, particularly on the other device sharing the IDE cable

second, is it a 40 way cable or 80 way cable pls?... & is the cable left straining to reach?

trying the easy stuff first!

best wishes, HJ

 

Hi and thanks for the fast reply.

I have 80 way cable connected to my two drives. The cables are straining to reach a lot. As I said I have to have both my drives sitting in the lower slots rather than the top. Also I had to twist my IDE cable around because the connector would never be up the right way for the second one.

I am positive that my jumpers are set right. My CDROM always detects as the Primary drive and I changed the jumper on my DVD drive to Slave before I put it in.

 

Hi and sorry for the slow reply

certainly, get that longer cable - can only be a good move

IDE cables straining are bad news (particularly if the strain tends to pull up preferentially at one end of a connector, or if it imposes a "skew" onto the cable where it is joined to the connector)

please appreciate that in no way am I trying to knock your care or expertise! Just that if you had written something more like "I've had a really good look at the jumper and it's definitely across the pins for Master. Just to make sure I wiggled it gently to check that it was securely fitted" instead, I would be grinning.

Because if the jumper was actually "cable select ", and the drive was connected to the far socket (black), the BIOS would detect it as master... and I have a horrible feeling that if that is the case you could end up with behaviour along the lines you decribe...

Whatever! Getting the longer cable has to be the place to start - and fitting the cable is a great excuse to have a really good visual inspection.

If that doesn't nail it, I would be tempted to try switching the two optical drives over - rejumpering both, and unfortunately probably shuffling them around in the box to keep whichever's "slave" on the middle connector. Unless the cable is generous...

...hope it doesn't need to get as far as this. But if it does, the idea is to see whether the trouble stays with one particular drive, or stays with whichever is master, or whether something else altogether happens.

Line (mains) power off altogether for this (not just turn the computer off) and if you touch the chassis with your other hand first, you won't have to get paranoid about static...

...let us know how it goes pls, and good luck!

best wishes, HJ.

 

Once again, thank you for your response.

I will work on what you said over the next few days. I should be getting a cable tomorrow - providing it is long enough. I will let you know how I get on.

Regards,
Phill

 

Sorry I have not made another reply yet. I am looking around my town and other areas for a real long IDE cable - 60-90cm at least. As most people don't stock these they have to order them in so I am going to try adn order one in the next few days.

I won't forget about this thread so keep it open and I will update everyone on how it goes

 

Hi all,

I am sorry I have taken so long to get back but my IDE cable got lost in the mail

Well I installed the new IDE cable and I still got the same problem. I also checked my CDROM was on the "Master" jumper and my new DVD was on the "Slave" jumper. Still the same problem. i turned the jumpers around incase it had a faulty connection or something still got the problem.

Any ideas on what to do from here? I would appreciate any advice.

 

what happens if you try them the other way around - ie jumper CDROM as Slave & fit to middle socket, DVD as Master & fit to end socket

does the problem stay with one particular drive? or is it that whichever drive is the slave doesn't get found? or (perhaps) do both detect OK?

best wishes, HJ

 

If you have not done so, go to the bios setup and make sure that the drive is not set to none (Secondary slave, set to optical or cdrom)

Although, occaisionally windows is known to see two similar drives and conclude that one is an echo or line noise and ignore the slave drive; this should not be an issue with one drive CDROM and the other DVD combo.
Remember, you can move the drives around if you have to .
I would make the combo drive the master and the cd drive slave .
Although if they are set to cable select normally the end drive is master and the middle one is slave, and in the old days you had to position them this way if you designated one master and one slave, most controllers now do not have this restriction. I still recommend doing it for compatability reasons.

My actual guess would be that you do not have a big enough power supply. The master gets detected and loaded , and there is not enough juice to properly power up the slave, so it fails the bios check. Often (but not always) this shows as if you go to my computer and choose refresh the drive shows up.

 

Suggest, if the problem persists, place one optical drive as slave on the IDE HDD ribbon cable, or if you only have SATA HDD then place one on each IDE mobo connector.

 

Hello phillracer,

Back to basics:

In DM > ROM properties, what is the Location number?

0 = Master, 1 = slave.

I also checked my CDROM was on the "Master" jumper and my new DVD was on the "Slave" jumper.
I assume you mean the first and second cable connector, you don't mention the jumper pins on the device itself, or if you did, that's what you mean, how is it set, Cable Select, Master, Slave?

Regards - Charles

 

One thing I noticed with burners is that they get very picky.
The DVD all in one should be set as master, the regular CD-ROM set it to slave.
Also power sometimes does it. Ensure that the DVD combo is getting a main feed (molex closest to the power supply) the slave can run off the farthest one usually without any problems.

Hope that helps

 

Thanks to everyone who replied. I am very impressed with the fast and professional support here.

Problem is fixed now. I took some of the advice mentioned above and made my DVD Combo the Master and made the CD Drive the Slave. Works evertime now

Thanks to everyone who has helped me through the last month with this I am very pleased that we have found a solution and I also hope this thread will help others who may experience the same problem.

 

glad it's sorted, and thanks for posting back with the outcome

best wishes, HJ

 

Thanks Dcrypter for another solution - I run into this every once in a while and it can be a bear to fix.

Regards - Charles