BIOS doesn't recognize my dvd drive

[Guest]

A little while ago my cd/dvd drive stopped working. When I would load up my
computer I would get an error message that says the BIOS can’t find the
Primary Master Drive at 0, or something very similar. I thought that the
cd/dvd drive had just died, but when I put in a new drive that also had the
same error. I don’t know what caused it to just stop recognizing the drive.
I swapped out the old IDE cable but that didn’t work. So does anyone have
suggestions on what to do?

 

[Yves Leclerc]

A little while ago my cd/dvd drive stopped working. When I would load up my
computer I would get an error message that says the BIOS canât find the
Primary Master Drive at 0, or something very similar. I thought that the
cd/dvd drive had just died, but when I put in a new drive that also had the
same error. I donât know what caused it to just stop recognizing the drive.
I swapped out the old IDE cable but that didnât work. So does anyone have
suggestions on what to do?

If the drive uses IDE/PATA/ATAPI connections, you need to make sure that the
"jumper" is correctly set to "Master"/"Slave" depending on how it is connected
to the IDE cable and if there is another drive on the same cable.

You need to check to see if the IDE port channel is "enabled" in the BIOS.

Check the IDE cable



If the above have been done, then the IDE port on the motherboard may be
"bad", "defective" or "dead".

 

[Guest]

If the drive uses IDE/PATA/ATAPI connections, you need to make sure that the
"jumper" is correctly set to "Master"/"Slave" depending on how it is connected
to the IDE cable and if there is another drive on the same cable.

You need to check to see if the IDE port channel is "enabled" in the BIOS.

Check the IDE cable



If the above have been done, then the IDE port on the motherboard may be
"bad", "defective" or "dead".

I switched the IDE cable to the another port on the motherboard but it
still doesn't work so coould both ports be dead and would an BIOS upgrade
help any?

 

[Anna]

I switched the IDE cable to the another port on the motherboard but it
still doesn't work so coould both ports be dead and would an BIOS upgrade
help any?

You're saying that you've tried two different optical drives in your machine
and the BIOS does not detect either one, right?

You've changed the IDE data cable and can we assume you've also changed the
Molex power plug connected to the optical drive(s)? If you've been using the
same power plug all along, change it.

We are talking about *internal* optical drives, right? You mention
connections to a "port" on the motherboard. You do mean the motherboard's
IDE connector, right? Not some external port.

And you connected each of those optical drives as Primary Slave, or
Secondary Master, or Secondary Slave and you're sure that as Yves has
pointed out, you've jumpered them correctly and their cables are securely
connected, right? And still the system doesn't recognize them, yes?

What happens if you connect your booting HD as either a PS or anywhere on
the secondary IDE channel? Does it boot & function properly?

And you've reviewed your BIOS settings to make sure that there's no possible
setting that would affect detection (or non-detection) of your optical
drives, yes?

What's the make/model of your motherboard?
Anna