IDE Controller Failed? Guidance sought

[km]

This is a repeat of my request placed in alt.comp.hardware.

I helped a friend test his PC which was dead. Used a PSU from a
standby machine of mine but no improvement. I then took out his
motherboard and connected to my working PC again no result.

Proir to this the standby machine booted up perfectly. When putting
back together the Hard Drive and 2 CDRom/DVD Roms were not recognised
in the BIOS. I also noted that the date had reverted to the creation
date ie 2002.

I changed the battery and still no HD or CDs in the BIOS. All BIOS
settings had gone back to factory settings.

I cannot see anything in BIOS which needs to be set for IDE controller
to function so am concerned that they have failed. As it is a standby
system there is no need to solve immediately but guess I will need to
buy a PCI IDE Controller.

Before doing that I hope someone may be able to give help on what to
check to be sure of cause of problem,

Motherboard - ABIT KV8 Pro

km

 

[Flasherly]

This is a repeat of my request placed in alt.comp.hardware.

I helped a friend test his PC which was dead. Used a PSU from a
standby machine of mine but no improvement. I then took out his
motherboard and connected to my working PC again no result.

Proir to this the standby machine booted up perfectly. When putting
back together the Hard Drive and 2 CDRom/DVD Roms were not recognised
in the BIOS. I also noted that the date had reverted to the creation
date ie 2002.

I changed the battery and still no HD or CDs in the BIOS. All BIOS
settings had gone back to factory settings.

I cannot see anything in BIOS which needs to be set for IDE controller
to function so am concerned that they have failed. As it is a standby
system there is no need to solve immediately but guess I will need to
buy a PCI IDE Controller.

Before doing that I hope someone may be able to give help on what to
check to be sure of cause of problem,

Motherboard - ABIT KV8 Pro

km

Put on one ata device to start, the DVD - does tray open, get blinking
lights, tried another cable, little bit of contact cleaner spray on
the pins/connects?

Unless it reverts to defaults every time powered up, pin-jump next to
CMOS battery, put it on a few seconds to do a reset to defaults. Also
can try flashing it - get the latest version - or flash utility to do
a bin dump, flash older, reflash back from the saved bin.

 

[km]

Put on one ata device to start, the DVD - does tray open, get blinking
lights, tried another cable, little bit of contact cleaner spray on
the pins/connects?

Unless it reverts to defaults every time powered up, pin-jump next to
CMOS battery, put it on a few seconds to do a reset to defaults. Also
can try flashing it - get the latest version - or flash utility to do
a bin dump, flash older, reflash back from the saved bin.

Have reset CMOS and flashed latest BIOS with no change. Although it
went through the POST screens faster.

The BIOS isn't seeing either the HD or optical drives. Interestingly
the Hard Drive is obviously getting power ie warm but the DVD and CD
players are not reacting to the open tray buttons.

In case there was some shorting taking place I removed the Motherboard
from case but no improvement.

When the IDE 2 cable was removed from the motherboard the Hard Drive
on IDE 1 was recognised!

I was on the verge of giving up on this but gave it one more go as a
result of your reply. Will need to look at the ways to get Optical
drives functioning now.

Many thanks.

km

 

[Flasherly]

Have reset CMOS and flashed latest BIOS with no change. Although it
went through the POST screens faster.

The BIOS isn't seeing either the HD or optical drives. Interestingly
the Hard Drive is obviously getting power ie warm but the DVD and CD
players are not reacting to the open tray buttons.

In case there was some shorting taking place I removed the Motherboard
from case but no improvement.

When the IDE 2 cable was removed from the motherboard the Hard Drive
on IDE 1 was recognised!

I was on the verge of giving up on this but gave it one more go as a
result of your reply. Will need to look at the ways to get Optical
drives functioning now.

Many thanks.

km

The "digital cobweb" syndrome -- system sits around long enough,
hardware reconfiguration might bring out something prone to fail or
act up. Run into a couple myself along the same line -- DVD drives
only, though. Added another ATA DVD unit recently, making two very-
close firmware LG DVDs, and it didn't go in well at all - same thing,
basically, not being recognized / slow-boot conflicts (except an
intermittent on-occasion thing). After hours of testing, swapping
around for combinations -- have three units on separately dedicated
channels (two on a PCI ATA controller) without a hitch ... so far,
knock on wood and don't rock the jello,

 

[ProfGene]

This is a repeat of my request placed in alt.comp.hardware.

I helped a friend test his PC which was dead. Used a PSU from a
standby machine of mine but no improvement. I then took out his
motherboard and connected to my working PC again no result.

Proir to this the standby machine booted up perfectly. When putting
back together the Hard Drive and 2 CDRom/DVD Roms were not recognised
in the BIOS. I also noted that the date had reverted to the creation
date ie 2002.

I changed the battery and still no HD or CDs in the BIOS. All BIOS
settings had gone back to factory settings.

I cannot see anything in BIOS which needs to be set for IDE controller
to function so am concerned that they have failed. As it is a standby
system there is no need to solve immediately but guess I will need to
buy a PCI IDE Controller.

Before doing that I hope someone may be able to give help on what to
check to be sure of cause of problem,

Motherboard - ABIT KV8 Pro

km

If the IDE controller was working perfectly before it shouldn't suddenly
fail for no reason. Check all the connectors to see if they are plugged
in the right way and if they are then check them to see if you bent any
pins. If you bent a pin either on the motherboard connector or the IDE
drive itself these can sometimes be fixed with a small screwdriver by
trying to unbend them. Also make sure the jumpers are set right on the
drives for master and slave according to how you have setup the drives.