DVD RW drive, XP now doesnt recognise my old drive

[Lee]

I got a new DVD-RW drive today, its running perfect and
installed like a charm.

My problem now though is, my computer doesn't recognise
my old drive, why?!

My old drive is connected with the power cable (the
usually white plastic holding red, yellow and black
cables) and also the ribbon connecter too. (the same
ribbon cable as my new drive. but obviously a different
port along it.)

So they are both connected the same, and the drive
physically works. I can open it, and it whirrs when discs
are in in, but no recognition from windows. Have tried
add new hardware etc but no joy.

Any advice?

 

[Wislu Plethora]

-----Original Message-----
I got a new DVD-RW drive today, its running perfect and
installed like a charm.

My problem now though is, my computer doesn't recognise
my old drive, why?!

My old drive is connected with the power cable (the
usually white plastic holding red, yellow and black
cables) and also the ribbon connecter too. (the same
ribbon cable as my new drive. but obviously a different
port along it.)

So they are both connected the same, and the drive
physically works. I can open it, and it whirrs when discs
are in in, but no recognition from windows. Have tried
add new hardware etc but no joy.

Any advice?

Did you make sure the jumpers were properly set on each
drive?

 

[Lee]

Ok, so what are these jumpers i keep hearing about?

Are these physical switches or what? How should they be
set?

Thanks Lee

 

[Lee]

What I did was, took every cable out from my old drive
and put them into my new one exactly the same.

For my old one. I put in the power cable, then the same
ribbon cable as for my new one, but a different port
which came of it. How should I find out which is primary
or secondary?

I dont undersatnd cable select or jumpers.

Thanks for your help so far
lee

 

[Ted Zieglar aka \Rocky\]

Virtually all drive manufacturers include detailed instructions on how to
connect their drives to a computer. You should review the information that
came with your drives. Here is a very short course on cables and jumpers.

When two IDE devices (e.g. hard drive, DVD drive) are connected to the same
data cable, one device is called the 'master' drive and the other is called
the 'slave'. The computer has to have a way to distinguish them.

At the back of an IDE device, next to where you insert the data cable, is an
electrical connector called a 'jumper'. Depending on how the jumper is
connected, the device will be either master or slave.

To make it easier for users to add IDE devices to their computers a new type
of data cable was developed, called a 'cable select' cable. With this cable,
the device attached to the connector at the end of the cable is
automatically the master device, and the device attached to the connector in
the middle of the cable is automatically the slave. To make this work, the
jumper on both devices must be in the 'cable select' position.