Optical drive question

[Nick5324]

I have an old Pentium 3 Gateway machine that only has a regular CD-ROM. I picked up a CD-RW, set the jumper to slave, and hooked it up to the 2nd connector of the IDE cable used for the CD-ROM. When i start the computer, it loads windows but niether drive is recognized and niether will open. As soon as i take out the IDE cable from the CD-RW, the original CD-ROM is recognized and works fine, the CD-RW will open, but of course isn't recognized, as it isn't connected. Any ideas as to what the problem is?

 

[airfoil]

Check to see if both the CD ROM and CD RW are set to Slave on that channel.

 

[Nick5324]

Thanks, airfoil, I'll check when i am at home with the comp, although it seems strange that gateway would have one device and set it as slave. Any other suggestions so i can check multiple things when i get back?

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, A single drive on any IDE channel (cable) is always master. Another drive on either would be a Slave. Jim

 

[airfoil]

The other thing that comes to mind is that the end of the IDE cable that you're connecting to the CDRW is messed up - if the drives are correctly set up as Master/Slave, the next thing you could do is try switching the IDE cable, switching jumpers to make one the Master and the other a slave.

I believe in the past, ODD manufacturers used to leave the jumper settings on their drives on Slave by default.