Weird NEC CD Burner Problem

[ScrambledEggs]

I had to remove my floppy drive, and to get to the drive I was forced to unplug the ATA cable to my CD burner (Brand NEC, cant find the model number due to current condition). Since then, my computer has failed to recognize the drive. It dosnt exist within Windows. Its just...gone. The thing still works as far as opening the door and trying to read whatever cd I put in.

Another thing. I checked the BIOS. First check, the drive didnt show up in the BIOS. I checked and made sure it was plugged in nice and snug. Second check, it shows up in the BIOS, but the name and model was garbled and had wrong letters in it (like NGC instead of NEC).

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[alzan]

Do you have a different (preferrably a known-working) ATA cable to try? If so, try it and look for changes.
Does your BIOS have a "Auto-Detect Drives" option? If it does, than using that might force the BIOS to see the drive correctly.

Other ideas: your BIOS probably has a "Load System Defaults" or similar setting. Make note of your current settings before you reset to defaults;
Are the time/date being saved correctly in BIOS?, CMOS battery might be weak/bad and that might cause your burner being improperly detected;
Check your motherboard manual and see if you have a "Reset CMOS" jumper on your mobo and follow the directions to reset.

If you want to narrow it down to drive or system problem, take the drive out and put it in a friends system. If it works, then it's another component in your system causing the problem. If it doesn't work, RMA that drive.

alzan

edit: If you do take out the drive and it works in another computer; just to be safe you could update the drive's firmware (I don't think you could update it as it is in your current system..

 

[ScrambledEggs]

Thanks for the reply.
It was indeed a bad cable.