What am I doing wrong? (1 Viewer)

[Julian Reville]

Computer: HP Pavilion Pentium II 300Mhz; 176Meg Ram
Came with Hitachi GD-2000 DVD-ROM
I added a Plextor CD-RW and changed the 6Gig HD to a Western Digital 40Gig.
All of these drives are IDE. The only way I can get them to play together is with the HD as a solo on Primary, and the CD-RW as master on Secondary with DVD-ROM as slave on secondary.
The problem is the Hitachi DVD-ROM is only capable of 1X audio extraction, so I have to use the CD-RW to "play" CDs to a temp file, then record to CD-R.
I got the "bright" idea to add a cheap ($29) 52X CD-ROM drive, but I can't get it to be recognized in the bios, without having one or more of the other drives drop out. I've tried every combination of master/slave I can think of.
Just for grins, I added another HD as slave on primary, with the DVD and CD-RW on secondary; that worked OK.
Is it possible to have a HD, DVD-ROM, CD-ROM, and CD-RW on one computer? or should I bought a faster, replacement DVD-ROM (Creative Ovation 12X?)??
Sorry to be so long-winded; I hate it when new stuff doesn't work.

 

[Steven K]

176 MB RAM? Why such an odd number? (I'm assuiming a 128 MB stick, a 32 MB stick, and a 16?

 

[Julian Reville]

Yes, it came with 48Meg and I added 128.
Maybe it's this cheapo CD drive or a BIOS problem?

 

[Graeme Clark]

This may be a stupid question, but you do have all the jumpers on the back of the drives set properly right?
My friend has 3 CD Drives on his system without any problems.
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[Julian Reville]

Definitely not a stupid question Assuming that the drives have the jumpers labeled correctly, then I have the jumpers installed correctly. Actually, in frustration, I have tried all the permutations I can think of.

 

[Glenn Overholt]

I think there are some drives out that are really pickly as to where they are, and what the other drive is. Maybe you ended up with two of them that would put you into an impossible situation. Maybe you should check out their websites. Heck, maybe they know about it and have a software fix. Good luck.
Glenn

 

[CRyan]

When you say that your BIOS will not recognize the drive, are you saying that the boot-up screen is registering all drives except for that one new drive? If that is the case, then I am assuming you did go into the BIOS and make sure that it is set to auto-detect on the IDE port you are installing it on. Correct?
If that is the case, then I am not sure of a solution. Are you sure that your dual IDE cable is working? I mean have you used that particular cable with two other drives and had it work proerly?
Anyway, it is always a good idea to have a CD-R drive on its own IDE port without a slave drive. If you are having to put the CD-R drive as a slave to get this extra drive going, I would not even attempt it. I would get the new DVD drive just so that my burner could be on its own IDE port. A new DVD drive may play nice as a slave on your primary IDE with the hard drive.
You can add a PCI IDE board for around $49 retail. Probably cheaper on the net. I would go ahead and do this just to get your CD-R drive on its own port.
C. Ryan
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[Edited last by CRyan on August 29, 2001 at 03:34 AM]

 

[Julian Reville]

Thanks guys,
Yes, I have tried to get the bios to recognize the drive using the AUTO function. So far no luck in this.
The cable is functioning correctly.
Must be a picky CD-ROM drive. I'll probably replace the DVD-ROM with a faster one, and live with that.
Thanks again
Julian

 

[Darren Lewis]

Try removing your other CD/DVD drives to see if your PC will recognise your new drive on its own. Might just be that your new CD drive is faulty.
Other than that it sounds like you're doing things right.
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