CD-RW and CD-Rom CONFLICT! Both devices do not show when together. Help!

[Lysimachus]

Hello there folks!

I'm having a problem, and I need your help. Before I list my problem, I shall provide my system specs:

Epox 8K7A
1.4Ghz T-bird
512DDR Ram
30Gig 7200 Maxtor HD
Geforce3 64
100meg Iomega Zip Drive
40x NEC CD-Rom
32x Philips CD-RW 800

Problem:

When both my CD-Rom and CD-RW are connected to the motherboard, neither of them show in My Computer or Device manager. The icons are not there, and they are not being detected. Both my CD-Rom and CD-RW are connected to the same IDE cable. My CD-RW is the master and my CD-Rom is the slave. I cannot figure out why this is happening, since this has not happened before. There must be some hardware conflict going on somewhere, and I'm not sure where to locate it. However, when I unplug one of the two, and leave one plugged in, it will show. So if I have just the CD-RW connected to the IDE, but not the CD-Rom, then it will display and run correctly. Same with the CD-Rom, if I have just that plugged in, then it will show as well. But if I have BOTH connected, NEITHER of them work or display! During bootup, it even says "None" for these devices.

According to Philips Technical support, they said to try dissabling Norton, and see if it works. Tried that, didn't work. They even told me to try having both the CD-Rom and CD-RW connected to separate IDE cables. Tried that, still didn't work. I thought that maybe my latest zipdrive software might be causing the conflict (my zip drive is slave to my HD), so I uninstalled it. Still didn't work.

This is absolutely driving me nuts! I'm ready to pull my hair! Do I now have to run either the CD-RW or the CD-Rom by itself for the rest of my computer's life? I can't even make certain kinds of copies!

I would appreciate if you could look into this situation for me.

Please respond as soon as you can.

Thanx.

 

[Gix]

have you tried putting them together but on different ide slots. like putting your cd on your harddrive slot and being a slave and putting the CDRW as a master by itself?

 

[Budman]

It's just probably a bad ide cable,change the cable & see if that fixes it.

Or try one the the drives jumpered as cable select.

 

[Lysimachus]

Yes I tried that also. However, it was one mess....I felt like my cables were going to burst since there was some mighty stretching and manipulating involved. It didn't work.

 

[Lysimachus]

I tried replacing the IDE cable with a new one...still did the same thing. There's nothing wrong with my cable.

BTW, I did try making my CD-Rom the slave to HD, and the CD-RW on its own and they were both detected just fine! However, it is now impossible to use my Zip Drive, since there is no way the cable can reach my CD-RW to be it's slave.

So I'm reverting to the old settup, since I have to have a Zip Drive.

Any other suggestions?

There has to be a solution to this, because it once worked fine. There must be something for me to undue.

 

[stevewm]

I have a similar problem in my current system.

Sony 4x CD-RW and philips 4x CD-RW.

With the philips as master and sony as slave they refuse to work at all, the model names the BIOS displays during bootup are garbled.

When the Sony is set to master and the philips to slave it works perfectly, but then for some reason my motherboard looses the ability to boot from CD! In my my new system they function perfectly no matter what their configuration.

The point I'm trying to make in this post is that your devices may just not be compatable with each other, this used to happen alot in the early days of IDE, it still rears its ugly head every now and then.

 

[Furor]

Make sure the jumper is on the correct settings, CDRW as master and cdrom as slave..or put cdrw as secondary if hd is master

 

[Lysimachus]

Hey listen, the name "jumper cables" has been buzzing through my head more than anything...so you don't have to worry about the settings. My Philips CD-RW 800 is the master, and my NEC CD-Rom is the slave. They BOTH are not detected on this setting. So I tried another experiement. I put the CD-Rom as master, and the Philips CD-RW as the slave. (still both on the same IDE cable). The result was, just the CD-Rom was detected! Obviously, there must be something wrong with my CD-RW...in that it doesn't like to be the master with a second device. Or could I be wrong?

But the fact remains, if for months I had no problem, and all of a sudden I do, there has to be something that transpired between now and then. Perhaps some software it doesn't like...

 

[Budman]

Lysimachus,
there 3 jumper settings,Master,Slave,and CS (Cable select).

Did you try CS on 1 or both of the drives?

 

[oreos]

I had the same problem not long ago, here's how I was able to fix it...

Check the registry for the following:

Using regedit, go to the following in the registry :

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\4D36E965-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318

Check if you have either the "upperfilters" and/or "lowerfilters" keys in there.
If they are there, delete the keys "upperfilters" and " lowerfilters".

Reboot the pc for the changes to take effect.

Hope that helps out.

 

[Lysimachus]

Oreos,

Hmm...I tried doing what you said, but my Registry Editor directories seem to be different...

I got to the folder "...CurrentControlSet\Control", but there is no folder named "Class". So I thought you might have meant "DeviceClasses" instead. There were a TON of numbers similar to what you gave, but none were the exact as yours. How am I supposed to know which number would work for me that would be equivelent to yours?

 

[Lysimachus]

Ok, Philips Tech Support told me that it obviously has something to do with something set up in my BIOS. Anyone know what I need to do in my BIOS? I notice that the moment I'm booting up, my BIOS shows for both CD devices as "None".

 

[jblondi]

well, read the manual for the motherboard. In the bios you should be able to auto detect the drives attached on IDE chains so that they report correctly when you boot up. This needs to be done before you ever make any changes in windows. The bios will override most windows detections. A bios upgrade might be needed if this is a common problem. My other hunch, how very small, might be that you have a master boot record virus, that disables CD roms in windows.

 

[Lysimachus]

Hmm...within the last few days I do remember that I recieved the "W32.Benjamin.Worm". Though I do remember having some difficulties getting my CD-Rom drives to detect once in a great while, it seems that ever since I had that worm, I have not been able to detect my cd drives, period, ever since this worm.

I used Norton to locate all the infect files, and deleted them.

I followed these online instructions to remove the worm from the registry:

W32.Benjamin.Worm Removal Instructions

But do you think there still could be some infected files that Norton isn't detecting? such as my master boot records like you said?

 

[CubicZirconia]

But do you think there still could be some infected files that Norton isn't detecting? such as my master boot records like you said?

\

No. It's possible that in the boot order within bios the cd-rom driver are set not to boot up at all. Go check the boot order and if necessary set the drives to boot.

 

[jblondi]

it is possible that a virus is hanging out in your MBR, but like said above, I would check the bios first and make sure that the drives show up in the bios, and when the computer boots.

 

[Lysimachus]

Alright, I found one more infected file and deleted it. But the problem still remains.

I went into my BIOS, and under the Standard CMOS Features, this is what shows:

IDE Primary Master [Maxtor 5T030]
IDE Primary Slave [IOMEGA ZIP 100]
IDE Secondary Master [None]
IDE Secondary Slave [None]

(again, I have my CD-RW set to Master and my CD-Rom set to Slave, both on the same IDE cable hooked to the IDE Secondary Master) I've already tried Cable Select, and that didn't make a diff).

I went into each settings, and they are all set to [Auto]

Is this what you mean when you say "go set the drives to boot"? Since they are already set to auto.

I can't believe I'm spending up to two full days now trying to fix this problem without a single bit of progress!

*patience*

 

[Lysimachus]

top

 

[jblondi]

yeah, I mean to set the bios to detect the drives, auto should work, but as you say, it shows up as none still. What happens if you set it as "user" or maybe there is a setting to set it as "cd rom". What shows up in the bios when you just have one drive connected. Does it still report the drive as none? Does it report the drive correctly if it reports one? Does it work for either drive? How about a jumper problem. Double, check that, triple check the jumper settings to make sure one is slave, and one master. PM me if you still have problems man. Im heading out of work and wont be home till around 10 eastern, but ill try to get back to you asap.

 

[jblondi]

Also, is there a chance you are trying to hook the drives up on the Raid channel?? Just a thought.

 

[Lysimachus]

What happens if you set it as "user" or maybe there is a setting to set it as "cd rom".

I do not recall those options.

What shows up in the bios when you just have one drive connected.

It gives the name of whichever of the two CD devices I have hooked...such as Philips or NEC.

Like this:

IDE Primary Master [Maxtor 5T030]
IDE Primary Slave [IOMEGA ZIP 100]
IDE Secondary Master [CDRW800]
IDE Secondary Slave [None]

Does it still report the drive as none?

Nope.

Does it report the drive correctly if it reports one?

You bet it does!

Does it work for either drive?

Yep.

How about a jumper problem. Double, check that, triple check the jumper settings to make sure one is slave, and one master. PM me if you still have problems man. Im heading out of work and wont be home till around 10 eastern, but ill try to get back to you asap.

I can't even count how many times I've checked the jumper settings. The case has been sitting open with every message I've posted here. The CD-RW's jumper is to the right, next to the IDE cable. like this ":::". It is hooked on the end of the IDE connector. The CD-Rom's jumper is like this: ":::", set to slave. It is on the connecter that is part way down the IDE cable. The IDE cable is hooked to the IDE Secondary Master.

Also, is there a chance you are trying to hook the drives up on the Raid channel??

I don't have Raid. This is the plain Epox 8K7A, not the 8K7A+.

 

[Lysimachus]

Well folks, remember me?

I'm back! This is because this issue is still very much alive with fury! The issue still has not been resolved, but some clues have been revealed that might help to narrow down to the real problem.

I went to a computer store called "Computer Outpost". The lady that worked there said to bring in both CD devices, and she would test them out to see if it was a problem with either the CD-RW or the CD-Rom. She said they both ran perfectly fine together when she tested them on her systems. So obviously it's nothing wrong with the devices, but rather my motherboard or perhaps something else.

She recommended me to clear my CMOS when giving me back the CD-Roms. So that's exactly what I did! I cleared my CMOS on the motherboard, and then reoptimized defaults. I plugged in both of my CD devices back to the same cable (the same cable that she tested them on) and on to the motherboard. And lo, at first, to my joy both devices were DETECTED!

I was so shocked, and I thought I had solved my problem....until, my worst fears once again came true. I restarted my computer, and that kaboom! both devices were gone one again. I shut down the computer turned it back on, but this time something strange happened! This time my CD-Rom was the only one that detected, and NOT my CD-RW. I restarted the comp again, and then again, my CD-Rom detects and not my CD-RW. So it randomly does whatever it does! Sometimes it will detect neither, sometimes both, sometimes just my CD-RW, and sometimes just my CD-Rom!

What can you make of this? Please, somebody HAS to know what is causing this!

I would greatly appreciate if somebody could really, I mean REALLY, research into this matter, because I have almost gone to the asylum over this issue.

 

[billyjak]

Did you try putting them on cable select and disable the cdrom boot in bios.

 

[Lysimachus]

No, I was told not to mess with the jumpers. They are set just right, CD-RW to master and CD-Rom to slave. Also, I don't think I would want to put them as Cable Select anyway. That would make it seem "unofficial". I want things official, and I want to know the root of the problem and why official settings do not work. The lazy way is to try something else, hope it works, and ignore the problem.

 

[Lysimachus]

You think it might just be a conflict in that neither of the devices happen to like eachother? and that perhaps I should purchase a new CD-RW? Because I also notice that my computer tends to freeze repeatedly at times when both devices are connected, whereas when there's one of the devices, it never happens!