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Need help with CD-RW drive

T

TandyMan100

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I have an AOpen CD-RW drive I'm trying to install in my computer. No manuals. It has the standard "CS/MA/SL" jumpers, but it also has three unmarked. Just left them as they were and moved on. Plugged everything in and everything looks exactly how it did with my old CD-R drive. Turn on the computer, and the drive acts like it isn't getting any power. Unplug the IDE cable, and the light lights up and the tray is able to come out.

Any help? BIOS won't recognize it, Windows 98SE wont recognize it, and I need use of my CD drive!
 
What setting/jumper did your old cdrom have? The jumpers help your system identify what drive is a primary (master) and/or secondary (slave) when they're on the same IDE cable. CS is Cable Select which lets newer computers that have the BIOS IDE settings set to "auto" figure it out. Older systems I generally saw CS fail so we always used to set the jumpers ourselves.

If you have only one IDE cable and have the hard drive AND cdrom on it, if they're both set to CS it may work, or set the hard drive to Master and cdrom to Slave.

Also make sure in your BIOS it's set to detect for the location the CDROM would be, otherwise it might be set to none or USER so it won't try and detect a new device.
 
Hard drive is primary IDE, (old) CD drive was secondary IDE and set to master. Same as the new one. Neither of them is working now. Can't figure it out, because everything is the same.
 
what's the jumper setting on the CD-RW? for the age of the computer, it sounds like your settings need to be like this: (excuse the bad ASCII art)

{CD Drive 1 (JUmper Setting: MASTER)}
|
|
{CD Drive 2 (Jumper Setting: SLAVE)}
|
|
[Motherboard IDE connecter]
 
Another jumper I forgot they sometimes use is "single" meaning 'I'm the only drive, don't look for anyone else". You'll want to make sure that's not selected either. It sounds like your drives are conflicting though (that's the most common symptom of having the jumper settings be the same, both drives won't detect). You could also verify that's the issue by disconnecting the cdrom, does the HD work?, disconnect the HD, does the CDROM work?

Beyond that check your IDE cables and make sure they're securely plugged into the device and the motherboard.

- John
 
TandyMan100 said:
Hard drive is primary IDE, (old) CD drive was secondary IDE and set to master. Same as the new one. Neither of them is working now. Can't figure it out, because everything is the same.
Click to expand...

I don't know what motherboard you are using but if it has 2 IDE channels then I would recommend that you put CD and hardrive on different channels.

Putting a CD drive on the same channel as a Hard Drive will actually slow the hard drive down, and probably set it to PIO mode (versus UDMA mode).

Or if they are on a single chain then like this:

{Hard Drive (Jumper Setting: MASTER)}
|
|
{CD Drive (Jumper Setting: SLAVE)}
|
|
[Motherboard IDE connecter]
 
Cs

Cs

CS requires the newer cables. You can hack an old one, but since IDE cables of any sort are hardly difficult to come by...if any one is really interested in what pins to cut I'll post it.

Dumb question, but are you sure the IDE connector to the CD/RW is in the right way ?
What model is your computer or motherboard ?
What make/model your hard drive ?
You might want to try unhooking your HD, setting the CD/RW setting to MA, and seeing if your board recognizes it on the main channel.
Does your motherboard have two IDE channels, by the way ?
patscc
 
TandyMan100 said:
I just said that I have a primary and secondary IDE channels. DC drive on one, HD on another.
Click to expand...

Then I recommend that you the Hard drive is on the primary IDE as Master/Single.

Set the CD to Master, and put it on the end of the cable plugged into the secondary IDE. Make sure the cable is plugged in the right way on the board and on the CD-Rom (pin one is towards the power connector, and is often marked on the cable via a red edge). Most motherboards mark pin 1 with either a number, arrow or thicker white line on ones side of the connector.

If all this checks out ok, then I'd look at the BIOS settings. Make sure that it is set to auto detect or on some older BIOSes you had to set the correct place (either Primary/Secondary Master/Slave) to CD-Rom (or Atapi) to get it to work.

I would also add a real mode drive to the config.sys and autoexec.bat to make sure the issue was not with Windows, if it works in real-mode then the issue is with the Windows 98 drivers.

Failing all of this I'd replace the IDE cable and/or switch the CD into another machine to make sure its not a hardware failure.

Hope all of this helps.
 
FWIW I've always thought you were supposed to use different locations for master and slave depending on what type of cable was being used. On older 40 conductor, 40 pin IDE cables the master drive uses the middle connector and the slave drive goes on the end. For newer 80 conductor, 40 pin IDE cables the slave drive goes on the middle connector while the master goes on the end. I could be wrong, but that's how I have always done it.
 
TomFCS said:
FWIW I've always thought you were supposed to use different locations for master and slave depending on what type of cable was being used. On older 40 conductor, 40 pin IDE cables the master drive uses the middle connector and the slave drive goes on the end. For newer 80 conductor, 40 pin IDE cables the slave drive goes on the middle connector while the master goes on the end. I could be wrong, but that's how I have always done it.
Click to expand...

You could be right. I can never remember which is which on those cables, yet another reason I don't use CS. I have never had a problem with placement on the cable when I jumper CD-Roms or Hard drive explicitly.
 
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