Incredibly frustrated with random hard drive non-detection

[Calidore]

I have an ASUS P4P800E board with 4 IDE devices: 3 WD drives and an
NEC DVD burner. My problem is, every time I do anything with an IDE
device, such as replacing the DVD burner, one or more drives is
suddenly not detected by the motherboard. It usually takes a while,
with much fiddling of jumpers and cable positions, before everything
is eventually found again.

Most recently, simply changing the jumper on my DVD drive (sec.
master) from Master to Cable Select in an attempt to restore the sec.
slave HD caused the DVD to to be lost instead. Putting the jumper
back not only didn't restore the drive, but the primary slave drive
(which channel I never touched) then vanished. Then I went through
the usual random jumper shuffling and now have everything except the
sec. slave back--same situation as at the start, even though at least
one jumper has been moved from its original spot.

This is an ongoing problem with the MB. The DVD drive and at least
one hard drive have changed since I bought it, but the problem has
stayed the same. None of this is reproducible on demand, because
nothing works the same way twice. If my hair weren't so short it
would be gone.

There has to be an easier way, doesn't there? How do I get the MB to
correctly detect every drive every time (barring human error like two
Master settings on the same channel)?

Any help would be very much appreciated. TIA!

Best,

Calidore

 

[Daniel Mandic]

Calidore wrote:

Any help would be very much appreciated. TIA!

Best,

Calidore

I think the P4P800 is capable of Standard EIDE, and should do well with
four IDE devices.

You have to study the EIDE-AT standard, also described in the MB-Manual.
Master, Slave etc.

Leaving all Settings in the BIOS depending IDE on AUTO, will be much
more comfortable in your case.


Good Luck!




Best Regards,

Daniel Mandic

 

[chris]

This sounds like a power supply problem to me....but, I could be wrong.

 

[Paul D. Motzenbecker, Jr.]

Calidore,
Greetings and hallucinations from just north of Fantasy Land (Washington,
DC)!
Well, changing the jumper from master to cable select should give problems
all in itself. Are your cables the cable select kind? Cable select are
always marked master and slave, but then some non-CS cables are, too. On
cable select cables, Master is always on the far end of the cable. They also
have a small cut in _one_ of the traces between the slave and the master. It
is hard to see that in the round cables. If they are not, stick to master
and slave. You must remember the semi-biblical passage that an IDE channel
may not have two masters or two slaves and you should be set. :-D
Peace,
Paul