IDE 2 cable connection prevents boot 1

[debjonancy]

I have a hard drive connected to IDE 1 and it works fine. I am trying to put in a CD-ROM drive. As soon as I connect the cable to IDE 2, whether or not it is also connected to the CD drive, the system will not boot up. Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[bcastner]

Without connecting to a drive?

Either the cable is bad or your have plugged it in backwards.

 

[debjonancy]

BCastner,
I have tried more than one cable. I've plugged it in several times and it seems unlikely that I would always plug it in backwards, but I'll pay more attention and try it again. Thanks for your feedback!

 

[debjonancy]

I got a new cable and plugged it into IDE 2. The computer will boot up. When I connnect the cable to the CD drive, it still won't boot up. Any other suggestions I can try?

 

[bcastner]

Does the BIOS recognize the new drive?

If not, it is a jumper setting and/or which connector was used to the drive itself.

Assuming it is still on IDE #2, the drive should be set as either "Cable Select" or Master in an one drive settting.

If you are using "Cable Select" the connector should be the black connector as the last one on the cable.

You have to get BIOS to recognize the drive as the first step.

 

[debjonancy]

bcastner,
Thanks for your help. Frankly, I think the machine is possessed. I had the drive set as a master but the computer still would not boot with the cable connected to the drive. What I did was disconnect the CD-ROM drive, turn on the computer, go to "add new hardware", connect the drive and had Windows search for the new hardware. It said it did not find any. I checked the device manager and the drive was listed. It is working fine now.

I was trying to get this computer going for a low-income young man with autism. I had several donated old items I was trying to put together. Nothing in the process went smoothly. I had never done anything like this before so it was a lot of trial and error. I was ready to give up on the CD drive until you gave me a couple of other things to try. I thank you and Joseph thanks you.

 

[paparazi]

Thats very weired!
Without any devices connected the cable is doing nothing more than extending the IDE pins, I would have said that the only thing it could be was a faulty cable.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[bcastner]

Martin,

It is weird.
My only thought was that there was a period of BIOS auto-detect, a period of bad cable or something, the autodetect was persistant.

He sorted it, but it likely would have been faster setting the BIOS to clear entries, and back to defaults between tests.