Help with IDE drives

[BigAl3du]

Hey Guys,

I am a fairly experienced computer builder and I recently started a consulting company on the side and ran into a very odd problem the other day. I went over to the clients workplace to install a cd burner, which should normally be a VERY easy installation. Upon opening the case I found that the the computer was using a Asus CUSL2 (great mobo), a P3 866, 256MB ram, a visiontek geforce 2 mx vid card, adn some other random peripherals. However, it only had a CD drive and a hard drive, but the hard drive was connected to the first IDE bus using a dual-device ribbon (master and slave connectors), but on the second IDE bus the CD drive only used a single device (only master, which I have never seen before). I proceeded to install a dual-device ribbon on the second IDE bus to connect both cd drives, but once I booted it up it didn't show any devices. I then hooked up just one cd drive to the dual-device ribbon and wouldn't work either, I checked all the jumpers and they were set to master and slave, respectively. However, when I put the one-device cable back in it booted fine. What can I do have both cd drives work? Is there a BIOS setting I am missing or what? I have used the CUSL2 motherboard before and didn't have any problems. Any help is great appreciated! Thanks!

 

[Souka]

"but on the second IDE bus the CD drive only used a single device (only master, which I have never seen before"
Do you mean that the ribbon cable had only two connectors? One to MB, one to IDE device? (I'm assuming so).

Anyhow, try making the burner master and cd-rom slave.....if doesn't work, try making cd-rom master and burner slave.

Also make sure the BIOS is set to AUTO-detect the drives.

If worse comes to worse, hook up the burner or cd-rom to the primary channel with the IDE drive.


Hope this helps.