Hi, If you are sure you have the drives properly connected and jumpered, the first step I would take is to clear the CMOS. If you are not familiar with doing this, it usually requires disconnecting from power, removing motherboard battery, then momentarily shorting (jumpering) 2 pins on the motherboard, usually marked CLRTL. Then remove jumper, reinstall battery, and connect power. This may not fix the problem, but I have often seen cases of "corrupt" CMOS causing the computer to not recognize hardware.
Regards, Gary On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 3:02 PM, Susan <[email protected]> wrote: > > I'm working on my Mom's Dell Dimension 8400 that is no longer under > warranty. It came with two optical drives -- DVD and CD-RW -- and > lately the CD-RW has stopped detecting CDs and so I bought another > drive to replace it. I've assembled several computers in my time, so I > didn't expect any trouble. > > The two drives that came from Dell were both Philips with jumpers set > to cable select. I took out the offending CD-RW and slid in the new > brand-X drive ("I/O Magic") -- which is a DVD-RW because nobody sells > CD-RW drives in brick and mortar stores anymore. (My mom doesn't need > a DVD-RW, but c'est la vie.) > > So I connected the IDE and power, plugged everything back in, and > booted up. Then I got two little system beeps and the following not- > too-uncommon error: > > -- > Drive 4 not found: Parallel ATA, PATA-0 (PRI IDE Master) > Drive 5 not found: Parallel ATA, PATA-0 (PRI IDE Slave) > Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility > -- > > F1 just booted into XP with no sign of optical drives, and F2 took me > into the BIOS where both drives did seem to be listed and on although > both had DriverIDs of "unknown." > > Thus began a whole series of attempts to make it work which all proved > unfruitful. I tried every combination of master/slave as well as > switching which drive was in which bay and then trying every > combination of master/slave again. The results were the same every > time. I scoured the internet to no avail, but I did read that some > drives are just finicky and won't work with others, so I said, "That's > what I get for buying the cheapest brand-X drive..." and went back to > the store and bought a nice Pioneer DVD-RW. I was full of optimism. > > So I came back home, traded the drives, and the same thing happened! > I've tried cable select as well as setting one to master and one to > slave, but it doesn't work. I haven't tried every combination yet with > this drive, but I'm wondering if something else could be going on > here. It seemed awfully suspicious that I could be getting the very > same behavior with this second drive, and I've taken great care to > make sure that the IDE and power cable are definitely pushed in > sufficiently. > > Does anybody have anything else for me to try? I know that in the > worse case I can have my mom switch to an external RW drive, but that > will be logistically inconvenient and I'd really like to get an > internal one working if I can. Besides, not being able to make this > work is making me look like an idiot. =) > > Thanks! > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Computer Tech Support" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/computer-tech-support?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
