No Wondows XP boot with CD slaves connected

  • Thread starter Thread starter JKevorkian
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J

JKevorkian

I can't get my machine to boot into Windows XP with my CD burner attached as a
slave.
Here's the scenario:
I replaced my Soyo P41S motherboard, which had 4 IDE channels, with an ASUS
P4V800-X, which contains only 2 IDE and 2 SATA connections.
My original setup contained 5 IDE devices - WD160 GB HDD on the primary channel,
a Sony CD-ROM and Lite-on CDRW on the secondary, a Lite-on DVD+RW on the third,
and a 100MB Zip Drive on the 4th channel. This layout was the result of much
experimentation to get all the devices to work.
Now, the ASUS board only has 2 IDE channels to work with, and I decided that
since I didn't use the ZIP drive all that much, I didn't install it in this
configuration. After doing a Repair install of XP and installing the MB and
chipset drivers, the machine won't boot up into Windows with the Sony CD reader
and CDRW connected to the secondary channel. It will boot up fine with just the
CD reader alone installed, but I get nada when the 2 devices are connected (as
master and slave, of course)on the secondary. I gave up installing the DVD
drive as slave on the primary channel at this time. I intend to replace the
EIDE HDD with a SATA to free up one of the channels. BIOS shows all devices as
installed but no Windows start joy.
My next plan of attack is to install an IDE controller card, use a SATA HDD as
my boot drive. install the original HDD on the primary MB IDE channel as
additional storage, place the CD reader on the second MB IDE channel, and attach
the burners to separate channels on the add-on card - all devices as masters on
their respective connections.
Will this work? And why didn't it work in the original configuration?

Tom Stearman

Don't take life seriously. No one gets out alive anyway.
 
JKevorkian said:
I can't get my machine to boot into Windows XP with my CD burner attached
as a
slave.
Here's the scenario:
I replaced my Soyo P41S motherboard, which had 4 IDE channels, with an
ASUS
P4V800-X, which contains only 2 IDE and 2 SATA connections.
My original setup contained 5 IDE devices - WD160 GB HDD on the primary
channel,
a Sony CD-ROM and Lite-on CDRW on the secondary, a Lite-on DVD+RW on the
third,
and a 100MB Zip Drive on the 4th channel. This layout was the result of
much
experimentation to get all the devices to work.
Now, the ASUS board only has 2 IDE channels to work with, and I decided
that
since I didn't use the ZIP drive all that much, I didn't install it in
this
configuration. After doing a Repair install of XP and installing the MB
and
chipset drivers, the machine won't boot up into Windows with the Sony CD
reader
and CDRW connected to the secondary channel. It will boot up fine with
just the
CD reader alone installed, but I get nada when the 2 devices are connected
(as
master and slave, of course)on the secondary. I gave up installing the
DVD
drive as slave on the primary channel at this time. I intend to replace
the
EIDE HDD with a SATA to free up one of the channels. BIOS shows all
devices as
installed but no Windows start joy.
My next plan of attack is to install an IDE controller card, use a SATA
HDD as
my boot drive. install the original HDD on the primary MB IDE channel as
additional storage, place the CD reader on the second MB IDE channel, and
attach
the burners to separate channels on the add-on card - all devices as
masters on
their respective connections.
Will this work? And why didn't it work in the original configuration?

Tom Stearman
Click to expand...


Tom:
We'll assume all connected devices and their respective data/power cables
are non-defective and properly connected .

If I understand your present configuration, your WD HDD is connected as
Primary Master and there is presently no Slave connected on that IDE
channel. If this is so, have you jumpered the WD as Single? Could that be
the cause of your problem?

And I'm at a loss to understand your proposed configuration for the future.
Do you really need an IDE controller card? Why couldn't your three optical
drives and the PATA HDD be connected to your motherboard's IDE channels as
they are now? (You need three optical drives?). Are you contemplating that
configuration because of your present problem? (It's hard to imagine that
your 100 MB ZIP drive is a useful/practical device in the current
environment).
Anna
 
Tom:
We'll assume all connected devices and their respective data/power cables
are non-defective and properly connected .

If I understand your present configuration, your WD HDD is connected as
Primary Master and there is presently no Slave connected on that IDE
channel. If this is so, have you jumpered the WD as Single? Could that be
the cause of your problem?

And I'm at a loss to understand your proposed configuration for the future.
Do you really need an IDE controller card? Why couldn't your three optical
drives and the PATA HDD be connected to your motherboard's IDE channels as
they are now? (You need three optical drives?). Are you contemplating that
configuration because of your present problem? (It's hard to imagine that
your 100 MB ZIP drive is a useful/practical device in the current
environment).
Anna
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply, Anna.
Ayuh, 3 optical drives is the norm for me usually. One's to read, and two's
to burn. A fellow in another group mentioned that some drives don't play well
with others, and I concur. Whilst tinkering with the system this morning, I
discovered that setting the CD reader & burner drives to Cable Select, and
connecting them to the 2nd channel via an 80-pin IDE cable gave me success
booting into Windows. No such luck with the HDD and DVD burner going the same
route on the primary channel, though. I'm pretty sure that an additional IDE
controller card will make the boo-boo go away.
As a side note - that ZIP drive does have its use backing up my Quicken files on
my other PC. Quicken files have gotten gigantic over the years.
 
Thanks for your reply, Anna.
Ayuh, 3 optical drives is the norm for me usually. One's to read, and two's
to burn. A fellow in another group mentioned that some drives don't play well
with others, and I concur. Whilst tinkering with the system this morning, I
discovered that setting the CD reader & burner drives to Cable Select, and
connecting them to the 2nd channel via an 80-pin IDE cable gave me success
booting into Windows. No such luck with the HDD and DVD burner going the same
route on the primary channel, though. I'm pretty sure that an additional IDE
controller card will make the boo-boo go away.
As a side note - that ZIP drive does have its use backing up my Quicken files on
my other PC. Quicken files have gotten gigantic over the years.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -
Click to expand...

All WD hard drives have a "notorious" reputation with jumpers settings
that you must set correctly so as for it underestand that you have a
slave drive connected to the same IDE cable. Have you made sure that
the jumpers are correctly set (I believe that the Master WD may have
to not have the jumper cap on the pins????)
 
Have you disabled your sata in the bios. Just a try.
I had a m/b that if I used the sata, I lost an IDE.
 
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