One drive, all good... two drives, no good!

[agould24]

Hey guys,

I've got a very strange problem with my PC...

I've got two optical drives -- one DVD-ROM, and one DVD-RW. When I plug just the DVD-ROM into the primary IDE channel, everything is fine. When I plug just my DVD-RW into the primary IDE channel, every is fine. I've tried this on the secondary channel as well. And I have ensured that, when both drives were plugged in, that one was master and the other was slave.

However -- when I plug BOTH drives in, the computer won't even make it to the Windows loading procedure. It just sits at the IDE device identification portion of the boot process. I've tried with other known-working optical drives, other known-working IDE cables, and even plugged just these two drives into another power supply (in case my power supply wasn't powerful enough). I've even tried another branch of molexes on the power supply cable. Unplugging all the case fans didn't make a difference either.

Furthermore, Motherboard Monitor is reporting the voltage lines are stable, and the temperature is fine (everything < 40 degrees celsius).

Any ideas? This one's driving me nuts! Could my motherboard be in need of repair?

My specs:

Motherboard: ASUS A7N8X Deluxe
Power Supply: Antec TruePower 430
CPU: Athlon XP 2000+
RAM: 512MB OCZ Rev 3.2 PC2700
Video: ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128MB
HD: 120GB Maxtor 8MB cache Serial ATA
DVD-ROM: Pioneer 105
DVD-RW: MSI DR-4

 

[johnjkr1]

Did you try them on cable select? In the bios, are all channels set to "auto"?

 

[agould24]

Yes, all the connections are set to "Auto" in the BIOS.

I don't believe I've tried setting the drives to use Cable Select. Would that really make a difference on modern systems?

 

[johnjkr1]

It really shouldnt, but I know on the Dell's I supported it wouldnt work it they weren't set to cs...do both drives function (i.e., read discs)? Maybe one of them is just bad. Overall, I would agree, that is an odd problem. The only times I ever see computers hang at the bios detection level is with mis-jumpered drives, or defective ones.

 

[agould24]

I've confirmed that both drives work. Currently I've got my old CD-RW installed (I had a CD I needed to burn; it burned fine).

Coupling this drive, along with the DVD-ROM resulted in the aforementioned problem. But alone, I burned a CD just fine. The DVD-ROM worked just fine on its own too.

The strange thing is -- both drives worked together just fine up to about a week ago. No problems whatsoever. About a month back, I started getting the occasional coasters. The drive would just stop responding and I'd have to reboot to free the disc. It did that a few times until it just wouldn't work any more with both drives attached.

Even more strange: after one of these reboots a week back, my C and D drives went corrupt. They just "disappeared". My E drive was untouched though. I had to reinstall Windows. It did this again just yesterday (when two optical drives were attached).

Because of all this, I have a suspicion it's the motherboard... but I'm just not sure yet.

 

[agould24]

By the way, my PC is plugged into an APC Back-UPS 500 surge protector/battery backup. As such, I have my doubts it's a power-surge or similar issue...

 

[HKSturboKID]

I had the same problem when I first pickup my liteon dvd-rw. When either one is plug in the pc boots fine, but when both are plugged in, it won't boot at all. So I just use the dvd-rw and use the dvd rom on another computer.

 

[purplehippo]

If both drives are on the same cable, set the jumper on the back of the drive. The first can be master, the second set to slave. Make sure the ide cable is connected correctly. The end of the ide cable should be put on the drive set to master jumper. The middle connector on the ide cable attached to the drive that says slave. Your bios should auto detect them then

 

[purplehippo]

If both drives are on the same cable, set the jumper on the back of the drive. The first can be master, the second set to slave. Make sure the ide cable is connected correctly. The end of the ide cable should be put on the drive set to master jumper. The middle connector on the ide cable attached to the drive that says slave. Your bios should auto detect them then

 

[agould24]

Thanks, I'll check the drive order when I get home from work today.

I believe I've been putting the Master drive on the end connection, and the slave on the middle connection. I'll double check though. The jumpers are definitely set to master and slave. I'll try setting them both to CS too tonight.

Another odd thing (which lends credence to a bad motherboard): Stand By and Hibernate options are completely unavailable under Windows XP now. Before all this happened, they worked just fine. I've installed WinXP and Win2000 a few times over the past nearly two years on this PC, and these Power Options were always available.

 

[agould24]

Ok guys, I'm at home now...

I put both drives on Cable Select, and got past the drive ID portion of the BIOS without hesitation. Both drives identified properly. When I got into Windows, both drives showed up in Explorer. I put a CD in each drive (the same CD); it worked in one drive just fine (the CD-RW). However, in the other drive (DVD-ROM), the disc wouldn't show up, and froze my computer upon clicking on the drive letter.

So, I hit the reset button. Again in Windows, both drives read the CD!

Not very consistent, and a bit worrisome. Perhaps a few more reboots to test are in order.

I wonder why these drives worked so well together up until a few weeks ago, when jumpered as master & slave...

 

[Double Trouble]

It sounds like you might have a bad IDE controller on the mobo, or the drivers for the mobo and IDE controller on the motherboard in windows somehow got corrupted. Try booting into safe mode on your machine to see if you can recreate any problems. If not, you probably have some corrupted drivers and need to do some remove/reinstalling....

 

[agould24]

I'm not sure it's the motherboard now (frustrating stuff I tell ya).

Currently, I've got two drives working fine. My DVD-ROM (Pioneer 106S), and my old CD-RW (Yamaha 3200).

The BIOS detects them quickly. In Windows, both drives read CDs without issue. I rebooted about 10 times late last night, and never a problem.

However -- when I unplug both those, and plug in ONLY the DVD-RW (MSI) -- nothing. Sticks at the drive ID screen for about a minute. After that, the BIOS just says there are no devices installed, and Windows proceeds to load. Once in Windows, there are no drives available. So immediately after, I went back to the DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo and it booted without trouble again.

So -- I brought the DVD-RW into work where we have several spare computers. I'm going to plug it into one of those and see what happens. Hopefully the drive is bad. It'll be a LOT more convenient to return the drive than to disassemble my PC and return my motherboard!