Primary IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed

  • Thread starter Thread starter matt-news
  • Start date Start date
M

matt-news

My computer has suddenly started reporting the error message "Primary
IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed" after the BIOS has
detected the harddrives connected to my system.

I have the following configuration:

Primary Master: West Digital 80GB ATA100
Primary Slave: DVD Writer
Secondary Master: Seagate 180GB ATA100
Secondary Slave: DVD ROM

The system boots using the following:

Primary Master: UDMA33
Primary Slave: UDMA33
Secondary Master: UDMA100
Secondary Slave: UDMA33

I have tried disconnecting the DVD Writer on the Primary Slave, but
that makes no difference. I have tried a brand new 80 pin cable for the
Primary channel, but that makes no difference. I have tried putting the
Western Digital HD on the known working secondary Master connection,
but that makes no difference.

Could this be a problem with the hard disk itself? The harddisk runs
perfectly ok and reports no SMART errors or anything like that, but
just runs slower than it could.

Thanks,

Matt
 
My computer has suddenly started reporting the error message "Primary
IDE channel no 80 conductor cable installed" after the BIOS has
detected the harddrives connected to my system.

I have the following configuration:

Primary Master: West Digital 80GB ATA100
Primary Slave: DVD Writer
Secondary Master: Seagate 180GB ATA100
Secondary Slave: DVD ROM

The system boots using the following:

Primary Master: UDMA33
Primary Slave: UDMA33
Secondary Master: UDMA100
Secondary Slave: UDMA33

I have tried disconnecting the DVD Writer on the Primary Slave, but
that makes no difference. I have tried a brand new 80 pin cable for the
Primary channel, but that makes no difference. I have tried putting the
Western Digital HD on the known working secondary Master connection,
but that makes no difference.

Could this be a problem with the hard disk itself?
Click to expand...

Nope,
Sounds like the CableID circuit on the controller primary channel died.
Put the WD on the secondary channel.
 
In my years working with computers I came across this problem numerous
times and had no problem fixing it.

Most of the newer hard drives come with a smart capability built in to
the controller boards on the drives themselves. If you go into your
BIOS and you look at the advanced settings and the many options that
are there, you might find an area where you can enable or disable Hard
Drive Smart Capability.

My suggestion to you is; go under the hood and double check your cables
and jumper settings. As long as you have confirmed them to be in their
correct positions, you go straight to the BIOS and enable Smart Drive
Capability for your hard drive. You can continue using the 80-pin
cables when you turn this feature on.

Also, set all your drives to be Auto detected and reboot the PC. If the
message still appears you must now go to Device Manager and go to
Systems. Open Systems and go to IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, and double
click to expand. You will now see Primary and Secondary channels. Click
on the Primary Channel first and open the properties box. Go to
advanced settings and make sure the transfer modes on device 0 and
device 1 are set to DMA if available. Do the same for the Secondary
channel as well and allow the PC to reboot.

The key to solving this problem is to turn on the Smart Capability
Option in the BIOS. There is nothing wrong with your motherboard, the
IDE Channels or the drives attached. This is configuration problem all
the way.

Good Luck.
 
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