replacing CD RW

[Mike]

Replacing a CDRW with a Samsung CDRW. This is part of a
master / slave pair. New one has power. But the computer
does not recognize it. I can see on My Computer icon: A:
C: D: But no E:

Any suggestions really will be appreciated.

 

[David Hollway [MVP]]

Replacing a CDRW with a Samsung CDRW. This is part of a
master / slave pair. New one has power. But the computer
does not recognize it. I can see on My Computer icon: A:
C: D: But no E:

Any suggestions really will be appreciated.

Mike,

Here's a few off the top of my head:

1) double-check the master/slave jumpering, to make sure you haven't
inadvertently jumpered both the old and new drives as "master", for example.
2) Does your BIOS see the new drive?
3) Does it show up in Device Manager?
4) If you plug the new drive in on its own - jumpered as Master of course -
without the other drive, does it get seen?
5) [the obligatory "teaching-grandmother-to-suck-eggs" answer] Have you
plugged the IDE cable in the correct way?

Hope this helps.

 

[Mike]

-----Original Message-----

Replacing a CDRW with a Samsung CDRW. This is part of a
master / slave pair. New one has power. But the computer
does not recognize it. I can see on My Computer icon: A:
C: D: But no E:

Any suggestions really will be appreciated.

Mike,

Here's a few off the top of my head:

1) double-check the master/slave jumpering, to make sure you haven't
inadvertently jumpered both the old and new drives as "master", for example.
2) Does your BIOS see the new drive?
3) Does it show up in Device Manager?
4) If you plug the new drive in on its own - jumpered as Master of course -
without the other drive, does it get seen?
5) [the obligatory "teaching-grandmother-to-suck-eggs" answer] Have you
plugged the IDE cable in the correct way?

Hope this helps.

Dave. Don't I feel like an idiot! They were both set up

as masters and now appear to work. Question for future
reference: How would I know if the BIOS could see the new
drive? Thanks so much. You did some good today. Mike

 

[David Hollway [MVP]]

Dave. Don't I feel like an idiot! They were both set up
as masters and now appear to work. Question for future
reference: How would I know if the BIOS could see the new
drive? Thanks so much. You did some good today. Mike

Hi Mike,

Glad to hear you got it working - and thanks for taking the time to let us
all know.
Whether you can see it in the BIOS or not depends entirely on what BIOS
variant you've got. Just about every motherboard out there uses some variant
of the AMI, Award, or Phoenix BIOS cores, but the board manufacturers often
re-jig the user interface of the BIOS to suit their purposes.
For example, I have in front of me an Intel D865PERL motherboard based
system. It identifies all the IDE/ATA devices at POST (where they flash up
so briefly on the screen, right after the memory count, that they're easy to
miss) and also if you go into the BIOS setup screens, where under
Advanced -> Drive Configuration I get a list of the identified devices.
I also have in front of me an old Award BIOS based system, and this, whilst
it also identifies all devices during POST, doesn't list them in the BIOS
setup - just allows me to set "Auto", "User" or a legacy drive type.

Checking that the BIOS can see it is a great "sanity check" when installing
a new IDE/ATA device - if the BIOS and/or POST can't see the device, then
chances are that Windows won't either.

Glad to hear you got your issue sorted out, anyway. Don't feel too
embarassed - we've all done silly things at least once! I myself have
plugged cables in the wrong way, mis-jumpered things, and on one memorable
occasion managed whilst fumbling in a cramped chassis I managed to plug the
floppy drive cable into the IDE port..