DVD & CDRW Drive Problems

[Psyphon]

There have been a few threads, which are similar, but not quite the same as my problem.

I just upgraded my archaic (but trust worthy) Classic (slot A) Athlon 650 & ASUS K7V motherboard to an Athlon XP-1600+ & SOYO SY-K7ADA v1.0 motherboard.

It booted up perfectly on the first attempt... almost.
Neither the DVD, nor the CDRW drives were listed in Windows Explorer; nor were they in the Device Manager list.

After download both the original & updated ATAPI drivers for the DVDROM drive (the primary), I was able to apply them with minimal success. The DVDROM drive is now only recognised as a CDROM drive; however, it still is not listed in the Device Manager list. The CDRW drive does not show up at all; however I believe that once the DVDROM drive problem is resolved, I should be able to easily rectify the other.

I've tried disconnecting the IDE cable and rebooting; then shutting down and reseating the cable. Windows did not detect new hardware.

I've been able to successfully update the firmware for the DVDROM drive, but Windows still does not list it in Device Manager. The BIOS also recognises the device correctly.

Finally, I've attempted to re-install Windows over the existing format; which resulted in the installation CD "checking the system"..., after which it hangs, while my system begins emitting a repeated beep. Only a hard boot will disengage it from that condition.

I will be contacting SOYO technical support for this problem nonetheless; however, I suspect that this may be a problem with Windows, which will require a complete format and re-installation.

Any ideas would be taken greatly into consideration.

Mick

Complacency is the rigor mortis of the soul.

 

[Bgarret]

I experienced the same problem with the soyo dragon board. It didnt like the Sony cdrw being in the Secondary slave to the samsung dvd which was the secondary master. swtich them around and it seems to work at the moment. This was on there P-4 Board.

See if that works.

 

[Psyphon]

Thanks, B.

After trying everything I knew, and inventing a number of other possible solutions, I had to leave the problem for a while and clear my head. (Yes, folks! That really does work.)

When I returned, I had realised that I missed something basic in the BIOS. Basic, but tricky; because it's poorly worded... and well hidden.

In the BIOS, under a section called: "*** Suspend Break Events ***, there is the option to enable, or disable the IRQ's. In this case, the default setting for IRQ 15 was set to DISABLED; and the Secondary IDE controller was assigned to IRQ 15! Changing this to ENABLED only fixed half the problem, because I still could not get the DVDROM drive recognized as anything but a CDROM drive; and Device Manager still didn't list it as an existing device.

The solution? I enabled all the IRQ's in the BIOS, then attempted to re-install Windows. This time there were no errors; and the install was clean. All my original files and application were intact; and all the devices were listed in Device Manager.

As I suspected, the culprit was Windows!

Cheers!

Mick

Complacency is the rigor mortis of the soul.