CD burner installation Q?

[andjbock]

Hi, I bought a cd-rw yeaterday and tried to install it. I have had numerous problems since.

1. My computer does not detect the cd-rw (can't detect pri master on boot up)

2. After bypassing step 1, when I hook my cd-rom (slave) into the ac delco plug it spazzes out, shooting the disc tray out and constantly ejecting the tray. It is stuck open and wont close at all.

3. At first I was able to undo the cd-rom and hook the burner up. The computer detected the new hardware, but now can't detect it when I start the computer.

* All the connections were secure and I copied the configuration that the cd-rom had when I made the cd-rw the master.

Does anyone know why any of these would happen or could you point me to a thread that might help. I would be satisfied with just being able to have the computer detect the burner. But if anyone has any advice on step 2 that would help as well. Thanks.

[gerald_weigel]

Couple of things to start out:

1. Check the jumpers.

2. What's your configuration? You said the PC won't detect the primary master (cd-rw). The primary master should be the hard drive. If you only have one hard drive and one CD drive, you should have the hard drive as the primary master and the CD drive as the secondary master.

3. We'll need some system specs, hardware and software.

[John Prophet]

Welcome to the forum!

okay..is the cd-burner and hard drive on the sane cable?

I am thinking they are by the way you described it.

there are two basic steps...

1) hooking up the cdburner....if it is going on the cable with the hard drive then the hard drive must have its jumper set to "master" (not single)...and the cd-burner must be on "slave". Or instead you can set BOTH of them to "cable select"

2) set the bios....you need to boot into the bios..usually by hitting "del" when its booting..but sometimes it's f2 or f10 (compaq)....go into the bios, go to "standard cmos" or just "standard"....sometimes you can just click on f3 and it will re-detect all the ide devices including your new cd-burner.....if f3 doesnt do the trick you just need to change the primary slave to "auto"...if youre not sure change them all to auto, lol.

------

99.5% of the time if you are having problems it is because you have the jumpers wrong on the back of the cd-burner or the hard drive.....remember that they interact...and some hard drives have a setting for "single"....meaning that they are intending to be the ONLY thing on that cable....so "single" is not the same as "master" for some drives....so its possible your hard drive has a setting for single and when you put the burner on the cable it wont allow the hard drive to be detected etc.

either way, the way u described it, it sounds like a jumper problem.

get a flashlight and look at the top of the hard drive and see if there is a diagram..if not look at the plasic near the jumper..it will be labeled somewhere on there.

JP

[andjbock]

Originally posted by gerald_weigel
Couple of things to start out:

1. Check the jumpers.

2. What's your configuration? You said the PC won't detect the primary master (cd-rw). The primary master should be the hard drive. If you only have one hard drive and one CD drive, you should have the hard drive as the primary master and the CD drive as the secondary master.

3. We'll need some system specs, hardware and software.

The hard drive is the master on 1 ide and the floppy is the slave. The burner is the master and the cd-rom is the slave on the 2nd ide line.

Sorry, what exactly are jumpers?

xp, amd 1800, 256 ram, anything else?

[andjbock]

Thanks for the welcome John

[John Prophet]

http://www.mysuperpc.com/hdu/jumper_pins.shtml

some decent pics of jumpers etc..the jumpers are the little white "caps" or "connectors"..they need to be on a certain set of the little metal "pins" for stuff to work right

[John Prophet]

dont necesarily go by what they are saying as far as the hard drive having to be set to slave....that is when u are ADDING a hard drive...so ignore that part.

you want the burner set on "master" and the cd-rom set on "slave"

[andjbock]

Thanks guys this should help me. I think both burners had their jumpers set to master.

[John Prophet]

yep

[gerald_weigel]

Originally posted by andjbock

The hard drive is the master on 1 ide and the floppy is the slave. The burner is the master and the cd-rom is the slave on the 2nd ide line.

Um...floppy drives are on their own cables.