CD-RW drive install problem

System: Pentium II/450Mhs with Windows 98

I bought a CD-RW internal IDE drive and I'm having a problem installing it.

I have both a primary and a secondary IDE connector on the motherboard.

The (only) hard drive is connected to the primary.

A CD-ROM drive (master) and a Zip drive (slave) are connected to the secondary. (factory configuration).


I tried the following installation:

The hard drive (master) and Zip drive (slave) connected to the primary.

The CD-RW (master) and CD-ROM (slave) to the secondary.


After switching on the computer, after the beep, the black screen displayed "Operating system not found ".
I checked all connections and jumpers and they appeared okay. Can you explain what the problem may be and how it can be solved? I changed everthing back to where I started and it booted normally.

(The manual recommends the CD-RW be set as the master on the secondary connector).

Thanks!

 

I won't claim to know something that your CDRW drive mfg doesn't, but I've always had better success setting CDRW's as slave to a DVD or CDROM in your case.

As to guidance, I'd try your current setup with the CDRW and CDROM however you want on the secondary IDE and then try the HDD by itself with no zip on the primary. That should isolate whether or not your problem is with the primary or secondary. Me thinks its the zip drive HDD setup, but that's conjecture at this point - let's isolate this first.

 

Thanks Rockster2U. My research seems to confirm all your suggestions...will try them tonight and post back if I don't fry my system.

 

Did you change the Jumpers on the Primary Master When adding a slave drive.

A mistake I have made several times.

Also if you have an 80 pin cable it may make a difference as to which plug is used for what. But those cables are usually marked.

BillyBob

 

Master, Slaves, Cables and chains (channels)

BillyBob is making a very valid point.

Many OEM Mfgs are using 'Cable Select' 80 conductor cables for UDMA U66 (and higher).

If so, and depending on the grounding on the controller it may cause a conflict or ignor MS/SL/CS jumper settings.

Also - (and although I loved Zip drives before CDRW was practical) an IDE zip drive is going to cause a performance hit on what ever channel it is attached to. - This is why some mfg will add a EIDE controller for the harddrive, and keep a DVD drive on a seperate channel from a Zip drive because the Zip could cause choppy playback.

The M$ answer Q262969.

Had a much better link - lost due to lightening brownout.

 

Thanks for all your input. The solution was to set my CD-ROM to master and CD-RW to slave (the opposite of what the RW manual instructed) on the secondary and leave the Zip drive disconnected. I really miss my Zip drive, but I guess I'll warm up to the RW once I get used to it as a data backup. The InCD software that came with it makes it pretty easy, although I've had several crashes on my Windows98 system since installing it...hopefully I can work out the bugs.