Device Manager does not recognise master IDE Windows XP

[matmanuk]

R u sitting comfortably? then i'll begin...

okay i have a fujitsi (spelling?) pc with amd athlon 1000 processor dvd drive and CD RW 128meg ram... (can't remember mother board mkv... sumthing or other yada yada...)

anyways i was running windows 98 happy as a sand boy but i had a cracked version of mcafee (woops) and it didn't work properly (had a missing dll file) anyways got macfee 7 recently and after a hideously long winded uninstall and manual removal from reg ran new version only to find horror of horrors a virus !
---anyway started cleaning my system and then did the most stupid thing ever and stopped the process half way through so my girlfriend could send an email... (thas right blame her...) so then when i continued horrid things happened and macafee stopped working uninstalled then tried Norton... found sum corrupt files clean deleted... okay so now i thought this was cool- I’d had to reinstall sum programs which had been infected (photo shop, winamp, and Adaptec) but i decided to install nero instead well i had untold problems then on due to crap uninstall of Adaptec and the clash between nero and Adaptec... various vxd nightmares... so after much fussing i got nero working but my CD rw had vanished?? (i had also uninstalled sumthing called cdilla? read frightening things on the internet) anyway after reg cleaning uninstalling and various funa nd games i got my pc running pretty cool (cd rom magically reappeared???) then it vanished again???? bugger i said (or words to that effect...

......sooooo after trying to update IDE controllers with the wrong drivers (via) and totally buggering up my system i got my mate round to do a clean install with win xp pro to see if i could rescue my beloved....

.... he saved my files in a folder called grande back up ... and tricked me pc into saving all me art and mp3s goodie gumdrops i hear u cry... well all was going smoothly until first reboot then we noticed my PC took about 3-4 minutes to load up... and my CD ROM was still missing.... aaarrggghh!! anyways after looking inside we discovered sum feckwit had cross jumpered my harddrive so it was between two settings (i think cable select and slave.. instead of being on master it was on the top pins of both???) anyway we tried every possible combination of setup and managed to get XP loading up super quick with the hard drive set to cable select (using 80 pin wire) and CD rw back to action (i bought a new one after testing old one and finding that to be dead???) set to slave but now DVD set to master won't work!!! Infuriating i tell u!!!

basically what ever one i set to slave works but the hard drive creeps on master and the CD drive (appears in bios at start up btw ) vanishes in devices manager when its set on the 40 pin cable as master.... have tried all combinations swapped drives cables jumpers etc but no combination works completely!!! IT MAKES ME MADDD!! Could it be the virus got me? Maybe my via chip is busted? Maybe the prob occurred when the files copied over (virus related japes-i have fully working Norton 2003 with all updates) maybe its something to do with the cross jumpering when i reformatted... please some one help meeee...

i have my pc running really nice now apart from occasional slowness (possibly due to buggered hard drive...) ... so do u think its new mother board time?



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... sumthing i forgott to add... i also have deomon tools virtual drive--- this shows up in device manager (not sure if its this drive comming through on the bios...)

 

[strazer]

Do you have 2 hard drives, a CDRW, and a DVD drive?

If so, I would copy all of your data to the second hard drive and then disconnect it. Set your primary hard drive to stand-alone master and connect it to the primary IDE controller. Set your CDRW to master and the DVD to slave and connect them to your secondary IDE controller. Reinstall WinXP and make sure it formats your primary hard drive.

Once XP is up and running, install your anti-virus program and update it. Now connect your second hard drive on the same ribbon as the primary hard drive. Set the primary hard drive to master. Set your second hard drive to slave. Scan your second hard drive for viruses.

 

[matmanuk]

Hi strazer .... thanx for yr advice- i only have one hard drive .. do u think reinstalling XP will help? Do i need to reformat or can i just reinstall over the top? if so will i keep all my settings and programs?

thanx mate for the help

 

[strazer]

The only reason i recommended reinstalling XP was to make sure that you have gotten rid of all viruses. If you have Norton's running in the background checking everything that's created, accessed, or executed, then you should be ok. (come to think of it, i don't know if Norton 2003 lets you change the level of checking it does)
If you reinstall (not repair) WinXP over top of your current installation, then you'll have to reconfigure your settings and reinstall your programs, but all of your data will still be there.
How are your drive setup now? You said that they all work now and that it'll just run slow occassionally? Is accessing the hard drive when this happens? Does task manager show a certain process using up all of the CPU cycles when it slows down?

 

[matmanuk]

hi strazer thanx for your response my drives are set up like so:

Primary: Master- HardDrive (works fine when on 80 pin cable)
Slave- DVD (not recognised)
Secondary: Master nothing (system won't recognise CDRW as master on this channel)
Slave- CDRW (works fine 40 pin cable)

cheers!

 

[strazer]

Have you tried putting the DVD and CDRW on the secondary channel together? DVD=master and CDRW=slave

 

[matmanuk]

hey strazer-man i am a fool (and i pity the fool) i had my ide cables muddled so HDD was on secondary--managed to fix it with 2 roms on cable select with the 80 pin cable(seconary) and the master on cable select with the 40 pin(primary)--- still a bit of a strange config but I got everything working sweet! cheers to those who helped out!