Primary IDE on my Epox 8k7a is suddenly dead??

[raystorm]

I think the Primary IDE on my Epox 8k7a could be dead.. not sure what to do at this point..so here's the story:

First off I have one hard drive connected as master to the Primary IDE and 2 optical drives connected to the Secondary IDE.

A few days ago I installed the latest Catalyst drivers for my radeon card. I then proceded to do some cleaning up of my hard drive (cleaning temp folder...internet files..history..defragging..etc).

The next day my pc would not boot up to windows. Basically it would stay at the post screen (that shows all my ide stuff and memory test). I constantly rebooted thinking it was just some silly error and it DID boot into windows once. While in windows there was constant stuttering and the light in front of my case was constantly blinking.

I rebooted my pc again and it wouldn't go past the post screen again. Now it DOES detect my hardware at the post and the light in my case stays on constantly. Now here's what I did:

1) I changed my round IDE cables and used typical IDE ribbons. That didnt work... I used 2 more IDE ribbons I have lying around and that didnt help either.

2) I changed the power connector (tried 3 different connectors) to the hard drive that was connected to the Primary IDE to no avail. It simply wouldn't go past the POST screen.

3) I loaded up the optimized defaults in the BIOS and that didnt work.

4) I took out my floppy drive just for the hell of it and that didnt help.

5) Next I SWITCHED the IDE setup so that the hard drive would be master of the Secondary IDE and the 2 optical drives would be in the Primary IDE.

I booted to windows right away after doing that!! I figured my problem is somewhat solved.. then I go into "My Computer" and noticed that my hard drive was the only thing there!!! No optical drives!!!! I decided to reboot again and when it goes through the post it goes to windows nicely again. Once again the optical drives were not there. They ARE detected in the POST screen AND in the BIOS on the Primary IDE channel but not in windows. Also the front light in the case stays ON at all times.

I checked "device manager" in windows and nothing in the Primary IDE channel is detected but it says its working properly.

So I pretty much figured that my Primary IDE is either dying or my IDE controller is corrupted. Is there any way I could totally reinstall the IDE controller drivers that Windows XP installs?? It only gives me the option of disabling and uninstalling not reinstalling.

I am using the latest BIOS for the 8k7a, totally updated Windows XP.

Sorry for this super long post but its driving me nuts and I have no money for a new motherboard and would like to solve this problem before considering saving up money for a new mobo.

Thank you in advanced to those who help out. Its very much appreciated!

 

[SigmaOrionis]

Hi, Raystorm,

I'm not positive about XP because I use 98SE but if you just want to restore your IDE drivers you should just be able to delete them and windows will redetect them and reinstall them. Like I said this works in 98 not sure about XP.

I doubt this is possible but could your IDE controller have somehow become disabled under device manager. I would also check in the bios to make sure all your IDE channels are set to auto and that neither channel has become disabled for some strange reason. Resetting your bios to defaults though should have done this anyway.

Also whenever I run into strange post problems I usually remove the battery or short the cmos jumpers to clear the bios and start over.

If the IDE controller is dead you could just buy a PCI controller card for like $20.00 bucks.

Hope its just a wrong setting somewhere. Good luck.