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View Full Version : Oh computer geru's, need help again.



Steve Clardy
09-12-2003, 11:01 AM
Having some problems with my cd rom, and my cd burner.
Here while back when using my burner to do backups, my burner kept telling me that I had to have UAD reader or something like that to read the disc. It always worked before so I clicked no. Then after it kept doing this I clicked yes, and it destroyed my disc data and put on the reader thing.
I then backed everything up on zip discs.
My burner hasn't worked for some time, it tells me it isn't available.
Then my regular cdrom started this crap. It won't read a disc unless its a self starter like a windows install disc.
Now when I put in any disc it sloooows computer way down, taking forever for screens to change, etc. Now it locks my computer up.
I have a card in this computer to be able to run more than 4 IDE's.
Haven't found my install disc yet, thought I would reload it.
I have--
2 hard drives
1 cdrom
1 burner
1 zip drive

Ideas guys? Steve :rolleyes:

John Miliunas
09-12-2003, 11:25 AM
Ideas guys? Steve :rolleyes:[/QUOTE]

Steve, on some main boards, the BIOS does weird things when just one of the devices goes "goofy". In other words, even though you have five devices on your IDE channels, if one of them is bad, it could easily affect the performance of others. I would pop the top (with the power down) and disconnect one of the CD's. Fire it up and see what happens with accessing the other. If it's the same (or worse), power back down, rehook the first one and disconnect the second. Same goes for your Zip drive. I'm assuming you're accessing both of your hard drives OK. My best "guess" would be that one of your CD's has gone on a permanent vacation! Good luck and keep us posted! :cool:

Steve Clardy
09-12-2003, 12:05 PM
John. Yes on accessing both hard drives. Ok there.
I'll try the disconnecting on one of the cd drives.
Last night I unplugged the regular cd rom and slide in another burner on top of it and tried it. Same problem, but that was not unhooking one of them completely as you have suggested. Come to think of it the regular cd rom drive has been awful noisy before all of this started.
Will give it a shot and see what happens. Steve

Steve Clardy
09-12-2003, 1:22 PM
I unhooked my two drives 1 at a time and still had the same problem. Burner not available, cdrom drive locking system up. The cdrom is hooked to the extra card. The burner is hooked to the system board.
Now I hooked up an extra burner drive I have laying here for another computer. It is the only one hooked up now and it works ok. Reads all discs, etc. Now it is hooked to the card, not to the system board.
So I either still have other problems, or both of my original drives are bad?
Steve

Back again. Now for the weird report. After replying here, I checked my mail, and got a monthly sale from Krex Computers, which I have bought from, and in part of their email, there is part of your reply to my post, about 1 of my drives gone on a permanent vacation. Whats up with this? Steve

John Miliunas
09-12-2003, 1:29 PM
I unhooked my two drives 1 at a time and still had the same problem. Burner not available, cdrom drive locking system up. The cdrom is hooked to the extra card. The burner is hooked to the system board.
Now I hooked up an extra burner drive I have laying here for another computer. It is the only one hooked up now and it works ok. Reads all discs, etc. Now it is hooked to the card, not to the system board.
So I either still have other problems, or both of my original drives are bad?
Steve

Steve, try hooking up the burner to the system board IDE interface and see if that's a go. If it's the only device on that channel, make sure you have the jumper set properly (master). I'm hoping here that your hard drives are hooked to the proper IDE channels, as well. They should both be on the primary IDE chain. In other words, don't mix a HDD with a CD drive on the same chain. (It'll work, but you'll loose performance.)

As an aside, I have a client machine sitting on my bench right now with a similar issue. The thing will POST, but not boot. I finally disconnected the CD drive (only drive on secondary channel) and the system boots fine! I put on a known-good drive and the system is liking it!

Good luck and keep us posted. :cool: