XP installs (from CD) but then optical drives are missing....

[KeithXP]

I have an MSI 875p motherboard, which has an onboard Intel ICHR5 chip. I
have a SATA150 drive connected and two optical drives (Master/Slave) which
can be connected to either the Primary or Secondary IDE channel

This stuff may be motherboard specific, but it case it helps, the Intel
controller is set like this in the BIOS:
Mode: Native
Configuration: S-ATA only
P-ATA Keep enabled: YES
P-ATA Channel: Both
Configure S-ATA as Raid: YES

(But I have tried many others....)

During POST, both optical drives are reported (on either the Primary or
Secondary Channel)

Once Windows (XP Pro SP2) has loaded there is no sign of any optical drives,
either as logical drives or as unmapped partitions nor are they listed in
device manager. They are completely missing.

If the Windows XP CD is in the drive, I can boot successfully from it. In
fact I have tried a repair re-install of XP several times and the whole
installation completes normally, using the CD of course. But when XP finally
starts the CD and DVD drives are missing. Go figure.

I have updated all the drivers and BIOS's to the current versions.

Has anyone any ideas before I bludgeon my head against the wall?

Thanks!

Keith P.

 

[Rich Barry]

Keith, take a look at Kelly's http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_abc.htm
Select C and scroll to cdrom

 

[Treeman]

I have an MSI 875p motherboard, which has an onboard Intel ICHR5 chip.
I
have a SATA150 drive connected and two optical drives (Master/Slave)
which
can be connected to either the Primary or Secondary IDE channel

This stuff may be motherboard specific, but it case it helps, the
Intel
controller is set like this in the BIOS:
Mode: Native
Configuration: S-ATA only
P-ATA Keep enabled: YES
P-ATA Channel: Both
Configure S-ATA as Raid: YES

(But I have tried many others....)

During POST, both optical drives are reported (on either the Primary
or
Secondary Channel)

Once Windows (XP Pro SP2) has loaded there is no sign of any optical
drives,
either as logical drives or as unmapped partitions nor are they listed
in
device manager. They are completely missing.

If the Windows XP CD is in the drive, I can boot successfully from it.
In
fact I have tried a repair re-install of XP several times and the
whole
installation completes normally, using the CD of course. But when XP
finally
starts the CD and DVD drives are missing. Go figure.

I have updated all the drivers and BIOS's to the current versions.

Has anyone any ideas before I bludgeon my head against the wall?

Thanks!

Keith P.

Have you tried firmware updates from the optical drives manufacturer?
Treeman

 

[KeithXP]

Thanks to both Rich and Treeman.

In my case it turned out to be an XP installation issue. The XP install
I was using was copied (using Ghost 9) from a disk (actually a RAID0
array on a Promise controller). I then did a repair-reinstall of XP to
sort out the boot issues for the new controller.

Since I had a safe backup image, I tried deleting this, and installing
XP from scratch on the new SATA disk. Lo and behold the CD/DVD drives
appeared.

Seems I am being forced to set up a new copy of XP. Oh well, good to
have a clear out from time to time...

thanks

Keith P.