DS4 Troubles

SonOf

SonOf

SonOf

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That's a good question!?
I'm currently building a PC for a friend with the following specification (if my memory serves me right):

Intel P4 950 Dual Core 3.4Ghz
2Gb Corsair 6400 DDR2
Gigabyte DS4 (F5 Bios as shipped with board)
Graphics Card - No markings to indicate what exactly it is, but it is passively cooled and very small. :confused:

My problem is that one of the two optical drives is IDE (DVD-Rom) with the other being SATA (DVD-RW). His two hard drives (80Gb and 160Gb) are also SATA2 spec.

Windows isn't installed on the system yet. I can plug in the SATA devices and have the computer boot up nice and quickly through to the point of 'Disk boot failure' which is fine. The problem is the IDE DVD-Rom drive. As soon as it is plugged in, the PC will not progress any further than 'Detecting IDE drives...'. I have left the system like this for over half-an-hour before now, and still no joy. Again, the all of the SATA devices are detected fine prior to this but the detection process is slowed down.

I've tried leaving only the IDE drive plugged in (having removed all the SATA drives) and I still get the same problem. I've been out and purchased a converter to change from an IDE to SATA connector, and whilst this doesn't slow the initial detection process nearly as much as the standard ribbon, it still does not detect it. Nothing shows up in the Bios either, yet everything else detects fine.

Is this just an incompatible drive or is there some process I'm overlooking? Do I need to update the firmware on the drive to get it to be recognised?

I did try to update the Bios as the manual suggested, but when trying to read the floppy disk, it comes back with as error "Access drive error".

Any help to either of these issues would be much appreciated.
 
My next port of call was to try one of my drives or even try the problem drive in my PC. Trouble is getting back round home whilst trying to keep the girlfriend happy. :p

I have tried another floppy drive, thinking that may have been the cause of the problem with trying to update the Bios, but still the same error.
 
Nothing really wrong with the F5 bios to be honest. Shouldn't stop you using an IDE DVD.

Is the floppy drive cable the right way around?
 
I hope it's just a dodgy drive. The first motherboard the guy ordered for this build (ASUS P5N32 SLI Deluxe) refused to boot. Tried stripping down, built out of the case and tried another PSU (known to work). I bought some cheap PC4300 and a Celeron to test and still no go. Replacement was exactly the same. Third replacement you can actually get into the Bios! But then it will just freeze up within seconds if it hasn't already done so on boot. This did have a newer Bios than the previous two.

So in escence, this is the fourth motherboard for his PC and the first Gigabyte board. I've built a fair few PC's over the last few years and none of them had any problems (touchwood). :D

I don't like to think about the amount of times I've stripped this PC down and rebuilt it.

I'm beginning to think it's a cursed build!

/Runs off to see if the system clock is set to 06/06/06 :eek:
 
Many thanks for the help guys. :)

Just been able to try another DVD-Rom drive and it is detected and almost straight away. :D

Frightened myself a bit though as I thought the computer had frozen up in the Bios with the keyboard not responding...

Then I realised I was trying to use the wrong keyboard......... :o
 
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