System will not recognise two IDE DEvices on same channel.

[kingfisher]

Hi
My old motherboard gave up on me.So I now have an Asrock G31M-S with an IntelCore 2Duo E7500 @ 2.9Ghz.
With 2xsticks of 2Gig DDR2 800Mhz PC2-6400 memory.
Plus a Nvidia Geforce GT240 on PCIe.
All installed by my local dealer.
The harddrive on my old system contains Win XP Pro & loads of programs which would be an aboslute headache to reinstall.
My harddrives are all Maxtor IDE,DVD Drives are also IDE.

So I connected up my Boot master to master connector on IDE cable & a DVD Drive as slave to the slave connector.
Plugged into IDE slot & powered up.
Went straight to BIOS to check that both devices were on system.
The Harddrive showed as master but no slave.
Checked double checked jumpers were correct they were.
Tried the devices each in turn on their own & found that any of my devices could be detected by the BOIS on either master or slave but NOT with two connected,single yes.

My dealer suggests it is because one device is slow & bypasses the detection process.
I have two identical Maxtor IDE Harddrives in relation to spec. when both are connected only one is detected.

I have managed to boot up with my original Boot Drive & install the drivers for the mobo. fortunately I was able to get on the Internet & download the required drivers.

What I can not do is run two IDE devices on the IDE channel.
Any ideas to overcome this?

[PrairieDawg]

Re: System will not recognise two IDE DEvices on same channel.

Couple of ideas ... have you tried a different ribbon cable? ... What happens if you set both ide devices as cable select? Not part of the issue at hand but reusing a previous installation of Windows is certainly something I tend to avoid. I know reinstalling everything is a PITA but usually the system is a whole lot faster if you start fresh.

[foxxx428]

Re: System will not recognise two IDE DEvices on same channel.

It's not suggested to mix hdd's and dvd drives on the same ribbon but sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do. This problem pops up more often than you'd think. The solution is to just play with the jumper settings on the hard drive until you find a setting that the board will recognize both drives. Some older cheaper boards (boards made for emachines immediately springs to mind) you'll never get it to work without at least boot delays and error messages.

[kingfisher]

Re: System will not recognise two IDE DEvices on same channel.

Hi PrairieDawg/foxxx428

Already tried a different ribbon cable also tried all the viarations of jumpers still no joy.
As I need a DVD Drive I have just brought a SATA one not expensive but when you already have two perfectly good IDE ones its annonying.

I will have to install Asrocks Intelligent Energy Saver to try & reset my carbon footprint.
In my opinion its a BIOS problem so I have sent an email to Asrock to see what they have to say.

I also brought a new 1TB SATA harddrive.Copied over my exisiting boot drive to the new drive & will now use this as my boot drive.Still keeping the original in case of future problems.
The SATA drive is quicker & quieter so a plus there & of course more space to fill.

[kingfisher]

Re: System will not recognise two IDE DEvices on same channel.

Problem now solved thanks to assistance of Asrock Tech. help.
I have been using drive caddies.However when connect devices direct to ribbon & use CableSelect both devices are now detected by Bios.
I had done this before but only use master/slave method,that did not work but by using Cable Select it does.
Looks like the caddy is obsolite.