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solomon021499

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Messed up CD when installing 3rd Harddrive

My system has 2 on board EIDE controllers.  The primary controller had 2 hard drives on it and the second controller had CD player on it.

The problem is that when I added a 3rd hard drive to the system by attaching it to the second controller, the CD stopped working properly.  It can only read the top level directory.

I have 3 complete computer systems and by switching hardware around, I have been able to determine the following:
Yes.  The hard drive is master and the CD is slave.
No.   It is not the CD I am trying to read.
No.   It is not the CD player.
No.   It is not the EIDE controller.
No.   It is not the cable.

Yes.  I have tried reinstalling drivers.
Windows95 will not even detect it anymore using hardware detection.

I am running Windows95 version 4.00.950.
I think this blasted PNP has reassigned something.  I don't know what and I don't know where.  

Perhaps there is a "mode" problem.
Avatar of rosefire
rosefire

What is the CD-ROM player and what hard drive are you using?

You sound like you know your stuff and really what you want now is some ideas.  I don't know all the things you tried, but here are some things to look at.  You probably did most of them already.

Are you using autodetect for the CD-ROM.  Some older CD-ROMS need to be set to CD-ROM.

Does that new hard drive work on other systems?  In what mode?   If it autoedetects you can sometimes use the BIOS to find out what the other computer is using for a mode and then use that mode on the other system.

RoseFire



Is the CD-ROM set to "cable detect" or did you actually jumper it.

While installing the new drive you may have loosened a jumper (like test which usually disables a drive). An intermittant may make it go in and out.

Does the whole thing  work if the CD-ROM is master and the hard drive slave?

Have you tried deleting all the IDE device drivers and letting windows reinstall them and redetect the drives?

RoseFire


Are all the hard drives detected by BIOS at start-up?

Sometimes a hard drive will function as an un-jumpered single drive without a slave present.  When another drive is added to the same port, they both must be jumpered correctly.

Has your hard drive on the secondary controller been jumpered as "master", or if it applies, "master w/slave present"?

in addition to above comments:
It probably is the cdrom jumpering.
On the back of your cdrom there should be a couple of pins like this : : :
labeled MA,CS,SL
on one of the pin pairs there should be a cap like so  | : :
It is probably on the master pins, put it on the SLave pins and it should work.

Please comment on this

Good Luck!
Avatar of Tim Holman
Solomon,
  Are you using CD drivers in AUTOEXEC.BAT / CONFIG.SYS ? - if so, it would have assigned a drive letter to a resource that is no longer there.
  Stick to Windows 95 CD drivers.
 

Please post your autoexec.bat & config.sys files here.

Check that you don't have a Mscdex.exe entry in your autoexec.bat that reserves a drive letter.

If so, place a REM infornt of that entry and see if windows corrects things.

Netmage
That's what I was looking for.  (Or, a lastdrive statement....)
to rmarotta.

It does seem pretty likely.

Tim_Holman also pointed it out and i just added abit of info.


I would check to see if the Windows 95 drivers for the cdrom have became corrupt.  Load into safe mode by holding left-shift on the keyboard as you turn the computer on when it says 'starting win95'. Then it will boot into a diagnostic mode of windows.  This loads generic drivers for video, etc. Goto Device manger (control panel, system, devicemanger) Select CDROMS, Delete all cdrom drivers installed. Reboot, and test again.  Note booting into safe mode takes longer so get a drink or something, also the reboot will take longer.
If the drive is a standard IDE CD ROM, I think you'll find that DOS mode drivers won't be causing it - it may, however, cause Windows to display an error (or complaint!) that device is running so.

Likewise, PnP probably isn't the cause of the problem either.  The IRQs used/assigned to IDE devices are not controllable by the PnP BIOS.  It's very difficult to "accidentally" re-assign on of these elsewhere.

Check the third hard drive's jumper settings.  Sometimes, even setting a HDD to Master can cause problems with Slave devices.  Have you tested the new HDD without a jumper, but with the slaved CD connected?
you can try to put your cdrom in master mode and the hard disk in slave or cable select mode
Good luck
gaestar, please don't submit comments as answers (unless you are absolutely possitive your answer will solve the problem). When a question is locked due to people submitting 'answers' other people may not see the question as it is put in the locked section. Plus, solomon already indicated that the jumpers have been checked (this doesn't eliminate the possibility since we all make mistakes) but others have already indicated that the jumper settings should be rechecked. Submitting your comment as an answer lacks courtesy to those who have already submitted comments along the same lines as your answer.

(don't take this wrong, I'm not trying to be rude to you, but I see it quite frequently)
Join the club demar!

Solomon, we need some feedback from you now......
gastaer, your "answer" was already proposed:

gastaer December 21
you can try to put your cdrom in master mode and the hard disk in slave

My post December 19
Does the whole thing  work if the CD-ROM is master and the hard drive slave?

gastaer, did you read the previous posts?

RoseFire
put 1 Hardrive for Primary Master, then put the second hardrive as secondary master,secondary slave for third HD. primary slave for the CD-ROM. or buy an ACCULOGIC IDE CD-ROM CONTROLLER and set the CD-ROM separate from the IDE controller that handles the Hardrives.
If you have an older computer it could be that your bios doesn't support secondairy ide port. Did you ide controller came with a disk? Try to install that.
Solomon,
You took the time to post this question.
Many people have taken the time to respond.
We now need a response from you.
Ralph
Avatar of solomon021499

ASKER

Thanks for all of the comments and advice.  I have been out of town but I will look at all of these and respond as soon as I can.  

Thanks again.
any progress?

Okay folks, I have spent several days going through the CDROM documentation and trying many different configurations.  

Before, I list the many things that did not work, let my state the solution for those of you who don't want the detail.  Put it back the way it was and reinstall windows.

Windows95 has difficulty detecting a cdrom that is chained with a hard drive.  Now, it is possible that some configuration will work if setup correctly and in a specific order as to allow proper CDROM functionality when chained with a hard drive, but it was time for me to move on.  If you are curious, make sure that you 1) modify your cmos and 2) reinstall windows in that order.  Reinstalling windows is you only hope of dectecting the CDROM and getting the proper driver installed.  Manufacturer supplied drivers are not used for Windows95 (only for dos execution).

istal, your suggestion was the most accurate.  Please post an answer and I will accept you solution.

Thanks to everyone.
>>  "Windows95 has difficulty detecting a cdrom that is chained with a hard drive."

>>  "Reinstalling windows is you only hope of dectecting the CDROM and getting the proper driver installed."

Solomon,
Those conclusions are inaccurate, but I won't argue the point as you apparently have the problem solved now.

Your problem might have been quickly detected and resolved much sooner if you responded more frequently here.
In the future, I suggest that you might save yourself some time and aggravation by responding to comments from experts who have seen it all.

Regards,
Ralph
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Bob Stone
Bob Stone
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solomon,what you want do with your question?
If you abandon it the points gets atograde
Solomon, you said:

>>  "Windows95 has difficulty detecting a cdrom that is chained with a hard
     drive."
>>  "Reinstalling windows is you only hope of dectecting the CDROM and getting
     the proper driver installed."

And Ralph Replied:

Solomon,
Those conclusions are inaccurate, but I won't argue the point as you apparently have the problem solved now.

---

I have to agree with Ralph, there is not a widespread problem with Windows having troubles detecting CD-ROM drives chained with a HD.

Reinstalling Windows 98 is a fairly simple and safe procedure (albiet long) and I advocate it as a solution for elusive problems fairly often.  It is often easier, gets the person back in business, and results in less frustration than spending days trying to debug a problem interactively in this forum.  I would not, however, suggest this solution for Windows 95 as you did since Windows 95 often has problems reinstalling correctly unless it is limited to the "system files only" option.  Even if you were using Windows 98 I don't think the reinstall was needed.  You probably could have just deleted the devices involved and reinstalled them.

You did not say which CMOS you updated, but if it was the motherboard or an IDE controller, you probably upgraded your IDE controller CMOS to be ATAPI compatible and the hardware was then able to find the drive.

I just wanted to add these notes in case someone uses this question/solution to try to solve their problem in the future.

BTW, Ralph is also right about "abandoning" the question's solution.  You need to reject stone5150's solution or istal will be unable to claim points as you requested.

RoseFire