CD-RW DVD-rom conflict

[hawkster27]

My Micron P4 came configured with a hard drive (master) and CD-RW (slave) connected to one IDE port, and a DVD-rom connected to the other IDE port. I have installed a second hard drive, and reconfigured the connections as IDE1: hard drive 0 (master) and hard drive 1 (slave); and IDE2: CD-RW (master) and DVD-rom (slave). Although the BIOS recognizes all four drives, Windows XP Home will only see one of the "plastic disc" drives. I've rearranged the cabling and reset the jumpers to switch both the CD and DVD as master/slave, and I can get either one, but not both. I reassigned my drive letters to make room for the new hard drive, but that doesn't help. I haven't yet tried placing one "metal disc" drive and one "plastic disc" drive on each IDE, because that means buying a longer cable. No big deal (if it worked), but it seems a software fix must be out there somewhere.

Micron is baffled also, of course.

For what it's worth, I've got a bunch o' drives, assigned as:

Hard Drive 0: C: D: E:
Jaz: F: (scsi)
Zip: G: (scsi)
CD Drive: H:
External Hard Drive: J:
Newly installed Hard Drive 1: K:

But the DVD doesn't show up in Disk Administrator (or in System), so I can't assign it to I:, which is what I would like to do.

The CD-RW is currently set as the master, but the DVD slave is invisible. If I change the DVD to master and CD-RW to slave, then the DVD shows up as H: and the CD-RW is invisible.

The CD-RW and DVD both came with the system when I bought it, and both are Lite-On.

Maddening.

 

[kiddpete]

I don't know about seeing all the drives, but separating the two hard drives onto separate ports is an excellent idea. That way, they won't slow each other down. The plastic drives are pretty slow compared to the hard drives, and can take up the slack on the two cables.

 

[cdogg]

hawkster,
At this point, I wouldn't fuss with it too much longer. Instead I would invest $30-40 on a decent PCI IDE controller card from either Promise or Highpoint. With a single-channel card you get one additional IDE channel to accomodate the DVD-ROM drive.

Not only will that solve your problem, but it will free up some resources if you decide to move your secondary hard drive over to share the secondary IDE channel with the CD-RW.

~cdogg
[tab]"All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind"
[tab][tab]- Aristotle

 

[hawkster27]

Thanks guys. The PCI IDE card did the trick. Luckily I had one slot left!!