DVD Burner not picked up by Windows?

  • Thread starter Thread starter teh.bolt
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teh.bolt

I have WinXP SP2, and I have had a fair share of problems that I have
mostly rectified myself. However, I can't understand why this isn't
working.

Tonight I decided that I should finally hook up my DVD burner. Upon
doing so, my computer essentially gave way to nothing. After many cord
switches and swears, I got Windows to boot again normally. However,
neither my third hard drive nor my DVD burner were picked up by Windows
when they are clearly detected by the BIOS. I have my two non-major
hard drives set as slave, and the DVD burner is a master.

What can I do?
 
As an addition: both of those drives are hooked up to the second IDE
port on my motherboard, which is probab;y the problem in the first
place.
 
As an addition: both of those drives are hooked up to the second IDE
port on my motherboard, which is probab;y the problem in the first
place.
Click to expand...

I'm still not clear on your setup.

Most computers have two IDE channels, Primary and Secondary. In some
cases it's possible to add more, but you can never have more than two
devices per channel, Master and Slave.

So if you could clearly enumerate all your IDE channels, and the Master
and Slave devices connected to each, it would help us to help you.

Triffid
 
On my first channel I have my C and D hard drives. On the second
channel I have my E hard drive and the DVD burner.
 
On my first channel I have my C and D hard drives. On the second
channel I have my E hard drive and the DVD burner.
Click to expand...

You still didn't tell us about Master & Slave, but from what you _have_
told us it seems you only have a problem on the Secondary IDE channel -
and on that channel you have a DVD burner as Master and a hard drive you
expect to be E: in Windows as Slave. Both are seen by the BIOS, but
neither are available in Windows. Is that correct?

If so, does Windows see a device on the Secondary IDE channel when only
one is connected? In other words, does Windows see the DVD burner when
the E: drive is disconnected, and does it see the E: drive when you
disconnect the DVD burner and connect the E: drive only?

Triffid
 
No, it doesn't.

As for the master/slave question: I have C as master, D and E as slaves
and my DVD burner as master.
 
Check the BIOS to see if BOTH IDE channel are enabled. Several motherboard
BIOSes have an option to tell the motherboard which IDE port(s) are enabled.


Also, check the third hard drive jumpers correctly.
 
I should do that.

Now my copy of Windows won't boot. It gives my the error message that
"hal.dll" is either missing or corrupted and that I need to reinstall
the file. This essentially means I need to reinstall Windows, right?
 
Update: It's booting, but it seems to run into an error every time I
hook things up to the second channel.

Also, I checked my BIOS and everything is set accordingly, as are the
jumpers.


I'm starting to think it's just a motherboard problem.
 
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