The problem

Windows XP very slow to boot up and HDD light permenantly on.


After much fiddling i have found that if i disconnect the CD drive (slave on
secondary port) everything seems normal after a reboot but replacing the
drive with another one creates a similar problem so to me it seemed to be
something other than the drives.
On the secondary port i also have a CDRW (as master) but this drive works ok
as master or slave on either connector on the cable so can i assume that the
port is ok ? , the cable has also been changed.
The BIOS setup does not recognise either of the ordinary CD drives , it just
shows "not installed" and it does not show in Windows either , the computer
still works ok as far as i can tell except for the CD drive.
The computer is not very old and has not had any problems before so , does
anybody have any ideas what the problem may be ?.


TIA Pete


Remove my.shoes. to e-mail

At this point, with your previous detective work, I would suspect the
Secondary IDE Controller on the motherboard itself.

However before you junk it (or RMA it if it's still under guarantee)
purchase two new 80 wire ribbon cables, ensure that you double-check each
and every jumper at the rear of each drive to ensure that they are correct
and you haven't accidentally set Cable Select on one and do one more run
through. Check also with the drive manufacturers.... Maxtor for example
have recently changed jumper ports on their drives. You don't want to junk
a perfectly good motherboard if it is something easy to miss.

Cari
www.coribright.com


"Pete J" <pete-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
newsyEib.240$(E-Mail Removed)...
> The problem
>
> Windows XP very slow to boot up and HDD light permenantly on.
>
>
> After much fiddling i have found that if i disconnect the CD drive (slave
on
> secondary port) everything seems normal after a reboot but replacing the
> drive with another one creates a similar problem so to me it seemed to be
> something other than the drives.
> On the secondary port i also have a CDRW (as master) but this drive works
ok
> as master or slave on either connector on the cable so can i assume that
the
> port is ok ? , the cable has also been changed.
> The BIOS setup does not recognise either of the ordinary CD drives , it
just
> shows "not installed" and it does not show in Windows either , the
computer
> still works ok as far as i can tell except for the CD drive.
> The computer is not very old and has not had any problems before so , does
> anybody have any ideas what the problem may be ?.
>
>
> TIA Pete
>
>
> Remove my.shoes. to e-mail
>
>

Hi Cari , thanks for the reply , if the secondary ide controller was faulty
would it not have affected the CDRW drive at some stage while i was swapping
it around ?


--
Pete

Remove my.shoes. to e-mail

One would have thought so but stranger things have been known!

Cari
www.coribright.com

"Pete J" <pete-(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:HQUib.15531$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Hi Cari , thanks for the reply , if the secondary ide controller was
faulty
> would it not have affected the CDRW drive at some stage while i was
swapping
> it around ?
>
>
> --
> Pete
>
> Remove my.shoes. to e-mail
>
>