Urgent Help on cd recognition

[tricktx]

Hey Guys. Recently my brother contracted meningitus and has to have both his legs amputated. ut today for some reason unexpected they gave him the all clear to come home. So i was planning in advance to build him a pc from all the spare parts i have in my room.

The system is a SIS motherboard running a P75 with 32M Ram, its just so he can type and fo stuff while in his room as neither he or i are rich. So i got all the parts together and i connected the Hard Disk OK, but when i tried to connect the cdrom it wouldnt connect. So i got my brand new delta 52x and pluged that in and that wouldnt recognise either. I placed another Hard disk in and that worked but for some reason it wornt detect cdrom drives???

Ive tried all combinations or Primary Secondary Master Slave etc, but i can get any responce from the bios for the cd drives it just appears with none on the list. the drives do work becasue i have checked them in this pc just now.

Any help would be appreciated because id like to get it up and running before tomorrow {well today coz its 01.19am where i live}

Richard

[BipolarBill]

Is this Win95?

[tricktx]

no the hard didks are formatted. this is when i first turn the oc on in the bios after the memory check when i detects what IDE drives are on the pc

[BipolarBill]

Most BIOS prefer to be set to "None" for those drive positions that host a CDROM. The alternative is manual recognition. Try both. Check those jumpers!

[tricktx]

i tried that with no look.

One thing ive noticed is that if i have my hard disk a Primary Master and Primary slave with the as either Secondary master or slave i get no detect on the cd automaqtically or manually. but if i put the cd as Secondary master say the pc wont even boot . It turns on but its just the fan thats blowwing and the cpu fans spin??

but i can find a way to get any cd drive to be recognised by the pc

[BipolarBill]

Try another cable if you haven't already. Check the motherboard pins carefully. I honestly don't think that the motherboard is up to it. You can pick up a good cheap UDMA33 IDE controller card for <$20 w/tax.

[tricktx]

it had a cd rom drive alrady installed on the motherboard but ive just not used it in years. Is there somthing i can do to wipe evrything. Inc bios and cmos to start from scratch coz it may be somthing in the bios which ive missed

[BipolarBill]

There should be "CMOS clear" jumper there. Unplug and use it if so. If not, you must remove the battery for a few minutes. On older boards, the battery is sometimes soldered in.

[Apemantus]

Make sure that the molex connector you have connected to the CD drive is fully in.

If the CD drive doesn't spin up when you power on the system, or it's light doesn't come on momentarily, it's not recieving power. This SHOULD happen regardless of Jumpers, ribbon cables or bios.

Also, check whether the HDD has a special jumper position called "Drive Master, Slave Present" and "Drive Alone". If it does, the HDD will not forward IDE signals down the cable to the CD-Rom if it's set to "Drive Alone".

Do not use special DMA66/100 IDE cables unless you have a motherboard that supports the standard, a HDD that supports the standard, and you are plugging drives into the correct plugs.

DMA66/100 cables are colour coded as follows:

Blue Plug - fits into motherboard ONLY.
Black Plug - fits into MASTER drive.
Grey Plug - Fits into SLAVE drive.

When using this type of cable, you can set the jumpers on both drives to "Cable Select" and the BIOS will be able to determine which is master & which is slave by their respective position on the cable.

If you get the black screen & no picture syndrome, this is usually because of an incorrectly seated IDE cable (or one that's in the wrong way round) or incorrectly positioned drive jumpers.

I know you said you have checked these, but to my mind this is the only way that it could freeze on the primary channel, but not on the secondary.

However. As an extra precaution, examine the rear of the motherboard near the IDE sockets, make sure there is no extra solder or pin length that could be getting grounded out on the metal case. Also make sure you use correct size spacers to mount the motherboard on in all positions. I know there are plastic ones available that can be supplemented in places where there is no screw hole for a brass spacer, but if you have the brass type, use these 1st. Place special attention to whether the motherboard has adequate clearance from the case near your IDE sockets.

Regards,

Ape.

[tricktx]

thanks for all the replys guys. Ive tried Everything youve said and still nothing has worked. I think the actual socket must be broken becasue ive tested the drives and the cables and they work fine.

Because my brother is due home today. Ive switched all the parts into a IBM 330 6576 pc, but i want to use my sis6326 vid card and the IBM has a onboard S3 Trio card. Does anyone know of a link to a manual for it because i need to disable the onboard video and i cant see anything like that in the IBM Utility Bios section

Regards
Richard

[Apemantus]

IBM's website is a good bet, they carry details of all back-hardware, so if yours has a PDF manual available, it will be there.

If it's an Award BIOS then look in "Integrated Chipset Features" in the BIOS, then look for an option called:

Onboard/Intergrated VGA/Video Support or something similar.

If yours is an AMI Bios (American Megatrends) then it may be worded differently.

However, be aware that the likes of IBM, HP, Compaq, usually use tailor made mainboards for their systems, and more often than not hide the inital BIOS info screen and/or options behind their own logo's.

You may have to find out if you can disable this before you can actually gain access to the BIOS settings... if at all.

Regards,

Ape.

[tricktx]

thanks for all you help guys. the problems now sorted, its all in the IBM PC. but i havent fixed the Vid card thing yet, but im getting a Bios crack for my friend tomorrow to allow me to get into the actual system Bios.

Regards
Richard