IDE not working right?

[Mentallo]

Hi,

I'm having problems with my system detecting the drives connected to the IDE conenctors. It's an Abit WB6 with a 250w power supply, 128mb ram, p2/350. The system only detects one drive connected to the IDE1 connector, and does not detect anything when connected to IDE2 -- this drive can be the Hitachi DVD or a Maxtor 13GB HD, or a Quantum 2.1 GB HD -- each time it only detects one drive on IDE1.

I've tried different jumper settings, different IDE cables, and different ordering of the drives.

I'd appreciate any tips to resolve this, short of getting a new motherboard.

Thanks,
Mentallo

 

[Cerebus]

Does your bios allow the ide ports to be turned off and on? If so, are both turned on? And are your master/slave jumpers set correctly?

 

[Mentallo]

The bios settings show that both IDE connectors are enabled, and all the devices available on those connectors are set to Auto detect.

The master device should be the hard drive, right? And the slave should be the DVD, right? I set both devices to cable select -- is this wrong? On a two connector IDE cable, how can I tell which device goes where?

Thanks,
Mentallo

 

[Workin']

Ok -

Don't use Cable Select (CS) unless you know for sure that your computer suppports it. Many Dell computers use CS but I haven't seen it anywhere else in mainstream gear.

Look at an IDE ribbon cable. There are 3 connectors on it, one at each end and one in the middle. 1 end connects to the IDE port on the motherboard. The 2 others are for devices. The device connected to the end connector should be jumpered as master. The device connected to the middle connector should be jumpered as slave. Read the documentation for each device to see how to set the jumpers. If only 1 device will be on the cable, connect it to the end connector and set the jumper to master or single, some HDD's use different settings depending on whether they are master or the only drive on the cable.

With your parts, I would connect them up like this:

IDE1 Master - Maxtor HDD jumpered as single drive (end connector of IDE cable)

IDE2 Master - DVD (end connector of IDE cable)

IDE2 Slave - Quantum HDD (middle connector of IDE cable)

Hope that's clear enough.

 

[stockjock]

You couldn't have said it better Workin' except it doesn't matter what part of the cable is connected to master or slave..middle or end is ok. The IDE controller recognizes master/slave config from any position on the cable...just my .02 worth...

 

[Mentallo]

Okay, thanks for the suggestions. I'll re-jumper the 13GB to be master, DVD to be slave.

But here's a wrinkle. IDE1 connects to the 13GB drive -- ATA66 cable. I figured I would put but the DVD on IDE2 (as master or slave?), connected with an ATA33 cable. But the bios doesn't seem to detect anything on IDE2.

Or can I mix and match ATA33 and ATA66 devices on one bus, using one ATA66 cable? Will the ATA66 HD work at a different speed than the DVD operating at ATA33?

Thanks,
Mentallo

 

[stockjock]

2 things...one set the DVD as master and put it on IDE2 and make sure you have the cable connected to the DVD correctly...one way to make sure that you have your cables connected correctly is that all the cables have red or blue lines running down one side only..make sure the red or blue lines are all facing the same way..for example..all ide cables with the colored lines should face to the right side of the case..I hope that made sense

 

[Workin']

My middle connector = slave rule is an old habit I use for consistency since I have built and own many systems, so then I can tell just by looking in the case which device is which without making my old eyes strain for a look at the jumpers.

A good rule of thumb for cable orientation is that the red line = pin 1, and pin 1 is almost always closest to the power connector on the drive. So put the red line closest to the power plug and 99 times out of 100 it is correct.

If you mix different speeds on the same channel everything will work at the slower speed.

If NOTHING is detected on IDE2, then either you are not setting jumpers correctly, the BIOS is not configured properly, or the IDE port is broken.

I have a Toshiba CD-ROM drive that only gets detected if it is set as master, but that is only one one specific computer, for some reason. In other computers it works fine.

 

[stockjock]

I agree with Workin'...it is very good habit have...just makes things easier when you make your next system...

 

[Mentallo]

Thanks for all the advice. But, as I suspected, it appears that there's something seriously wrong with the motherboard -- at the very least, the IDE connectors are somewhat fried. I set the jumpers as master for the hard drive, slave for the dvd, connect the ide cable, boot up ... only the master is detected. If I swap jumpers and reboot, only the DVD is detected. Nothing is detected on IDE2.

What a bummer. What's my recourse? I bought this on the web more than 30 days ago and they don't take returns after that. Should I contact Abit?

Thanks,
Mentallo

 

[Workin']

I'd try and get Abit to do something about it.

 

[Mentallo]

Yeah, I'll call abit .... grumble .... I emailed Axion Technologies to do an RMA ... no response.