Any Ideas?

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I have two optical drives connected by a 100/133 cable to the motherboard (ASUS PSK SE/EPU). The cable seems to be of reasonable quality (round, shielded, contained in a thick heat shrink).

Neither of the optical drives are recognised by the computer in Devise Manager. They just don’t appear. No yellow triangle etc.

When the computer boots only the light on primary drive lights up, the secondary drive doesn’t.

I’ve dabbled about a bit following the Windows Wizard which suggests disconnecting drives etc, etc. I also did the bit about creating a key in the registry.

If I unplug the ATA/100/133 cable the lights on both optical drives will light up and the trays will open. When I replace the cable, the primary drive will open and close, but the secondary drive will neither light up or open and close. I reboot between each dabble and I’ve been unable to have windows (XP) recognise the drives.

Does anyone have any ideas, could it be the socket (unsure of the name) on the motherboard (red coloured if that’s any help) has failed or the ATA Cable. I don’t have a spare ATA cable.

I also tried, and I don’t know if it would work if I was doing it correctly and that was to omit the secondary drive altogether, going straight from the motherboard socket direct to the primary drive. I also tried direct from motherboard to secondary drive using the primary drive connection.

Some time ago the Ethernet cable socket failed (lightening strike, surge up virgin cable me thinks), following sound advise from guys on OCUK I bought an Adapter Card and its now working.

I was unable to use system restore. I think the problem might have been after I'd uninstalled a freeware video to mp4 conversion program. I only discovered the problem some months later.

Both optical drives are Sony and work from Windows drivers.

I am intending to buy a new computer with windows 10 installed and I’d like to pass this one on to my niece as a standalone computer. As it stands its impossible for me to reinstall the operating system.

Any suggestions would be warmly welcomed.
 
I can't recall if you still needed to set master/slave jumpers on IDE devices in the days of 100/133. Might be worth checking.

I presume the cable is definitely an 80 conductor version, rather than the older 40 conductor ribbon cables?
 
With IDE drives, you only need to mess around with master/slave jumpers if they're on the same cable. If the drives have a 'cable select' jumper, then that should work too. The older cables only reduce the speed, it should still work.

Do these drives appear in the BIOS? If not, then the cable could be the issue.

You may still be able to get ide cables from the rainforest or the bay if you think the cable's faulty. OCUK don't seem to do them any more. They shouldn't cost that much.
 
zola25 said:
I can't recall if you still needed to set master/slave jumpers on IDE devices in the days of 100/133. Might be worth checking.

I presume the cable is definitely an 80 conductor version, rather than the older 40 conductor ribbon cables?
Click to expand...

Yes the cable is definitely 80.

Borealis said:
Do these drives appear in the BIOS? If not, then the cable could be the issue.
Click to expand...

As such I can't seem to access BIOS. When I've pushed the F8 key it shows the three drives: Floppy, Sony 1 (big long number), Sony 2 (big long number). One above the other, no other settings.

It's defaulting to Floppy, when I move it to Sony 1 and press enter, on the next reboot, it defaults back to Floppy.

I can't seem to be able to see the BIOS screen proper. On bootup It says I can press the TAB key to access setup. I did that, it just ran through a screen in lightening fast fashion and booted as normal.

I have looked at the BIOS before but that was years ago.

Strange that the F8 key, shows Floppy drive and the two Sonys but they are NOT shown in Devise Manager.

I'd spoken to a guy in a computer shop about this and he said it frequently happened with Windows XP and suggested I upgrade. I wasn't prepared to do so in view of Windows 10 being introduced.
 
deano-5 said:
Can you install Windows via USB?
Click to expand...

Thanx

Not without having to buy a USB DVD Player?

Do you think one of these might help:

IDE to SATA Serial-ATA Bilateral HDD Adapter Converter UU

I spent ages on the net last night trying to find a solution. It would seem that there are loads and loads of people with the same problem. Despite remedies many others have had the same problem and asked what to do next. No one came back saying, I tried everything and eventually turned my computer into a paperweight!

I don't really want to by a new SATA DVD RW because that might NOT work either, although I suppose I if it doesn't I could install it (or ask someone else) into my new rig.

I've got to learn how to back up an image and when I eventually buy a new rig and install windows I can make an image and hopefully if I had the same problem, swap the image over.

Do you think this older system would support Windows 10?

CPU: (Sckt775)Intel® CoreT 2 Duo E8400 CPU @ 3.0GHz 1333FSB 6MB L2 Cache 64-bit
CD: SONY DUAL FORMAT 20X DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW DRIVE DUAL LAYER
CD2: SONY 16X DVD-ROM
FLASHMEDIA: INTERNAL 12in1 Flash Media Reader/Writer
FAN: INTEL LGA775 CERTIFIED CPU FAN & HEATSINK
HDD: Single Hard Drive (250GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
HDD2: 160GB SATA-II 3.0Gb/s 8M Cache 7200RPM Hard Drive
MOTHERBOARD: (QX9650 support) Asus P5K SE Intel P35 Chipset LGA775 FSB1333 DDR2/800 Mainboard w/GbLAN,USB2.0,&7.1Audio
MEMORY: (Req.DDR2 MainBoard)2GB (2x1GB) PC6400 DDR2/800 Dual Channel Memory
NETWORK: ONBOARD 10/100 NETWORK CARD
OS: Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition w/ Service Pack 2
Floppy Drive
ANTEC 430WATT
SOUND: Creative Labs SB Audigy SE
VIDEO: ATI Radeon HD 3650 PCI-E x16 512MB Video Card
 
deano-5 said:
It'll just get messy with adapters.
I meant install with a USB memory stick
Click to expand...

I have a 128 MB memory stick, I don't think that would work somehow?

How could I transfer Windows from a DVD/CD to a memory stick when the DVD writers won't work?

The suggested "Buy a SATA DVD" (Thanx for that) might give me a working DVD but what's to say that Windows would acknowledge the drive, especially if it's NOT recognising the other two? The Windows Drivers might have disappeared. I might get "New Hardware Found" then it asks for the driver, and it isn't in the Windows System.

Luckily enough the computer is realistically at the end of it's working life, but it's horrifying to think that this could have happened in the first week of it's life, and what's to say that if I'd bought it a little time later both Optical Drives could have been SATA anyway. I didn't actually realise that Optical Drives could be run on SATA until posting this thread. You'll realise I'm NOT very knowledgeable about these matters.

I'll be buying a new computer in the future (when Windows has settled down and some helpful guy like Baddass posts something like this:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17180569

about Windows 10.


Then I'm wondering if (back to my present computer) I back up all my data, then try creating a Windows Bootup Floppy Disk I'd be able to reinstall Windows XP. It might be difficult as when I've tried to enter the boot sequence and enter the DVD drive, it always defaults back to Floppy, suggesting that perhaps the BIOS doesn't physically recognise the two optical drives, even though they are shown in the sequence.

Otherwise the computer is in nice condition, the case is nice and clean, no bumps, no dogs/cats/children, one careful owner.

Thanx for your suggested help. Any more advise you can give me?
 
I'm now awaiting delivery of a SATA DVD Drive. Perhaps that will work.

An old post from somewhere else suggested creating a virtual Drive, then go to Devise Manager, where the new category will appear, then click that for hardware changes and it "should" identify the missing disks. Sounded like a good idea. I tried that but mine weren't recognised.

I haven't been able to find a cheap 80 wire ATA 100/133 cable on the bay. I need one which is at least 26 inches long.
 
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