Beating my head against the wall on this one

[photolady]

So could use some suggestions:

System is:
AMD 850Mhz
Asus A7V266-E/AA
512mb DDR266
Maxtor 60GB partitioned into
10gb and 44 odd gb

10gb is full to 1.83gb left
44gb free space 43gb

Trying to install 80gb WD harddrive and use Ghost to clone main drive to new drive.
BIOS is whacky and it is driving me nuts. One time it will see all drives, next reboot it won't see slaved 80gb, then next boot it won't see optical drives. Reboot, it sees Maxtor, and then opticals and no slave. Is this CMOS battery? Not cables, I've changed those already.

I've tried both drives separately, BIOS sees all, Maxtor and then WD with opticals. Set both as cable select, this is where it's not seeing, then seeing. Tried Master and Slave, this option won't even see the WD. These are all IDE drives, no SATA.

And each equal boot, opticals disappear and resurface on next boot.

Help!! LOL

[dbarrow]

How old is the board?
Sounds like some kind of faulty controller issue on the mobo suggesting RMA or replacement.

If CMOS settings are changing, replace battery.
If auto-detect in BIOS bootup is losing the drives, I would conclude mobo is kaput!

BTW: when dealing with daughter's RMA issue, Asus Tech Support was real quick to suggest the "bad capacitor" problem indicating this may be a major problem for them. They were not overly concerned with the "3 yr warranty" period time line and did (although it took 3 months and 2 RMAs) replace the mobo with a new one. Worth a phone call!

[photolady]

Thanks Dan (oops). I was afraid this would be the answer......bad mobo. I'll try a new battery but it probably won't help. This board is more than 3 years old as far as I can tell anyway. And after what all she wants me to install, it might be cheaper in the long run to build her our upgrade computer. I'll speak to her tomorrow about this option. yep, I think that would be best all around.

[jcampi]

Photolady, I come in peace. I'm just curious - given your experience is this type of issue more common with AMD or intel based systems?

[Dan18960]

Thanks Dan. I was afraid this would be the answer......bad mobo. I'll try a new battery but it probably won't help. This board is more than 3 years old as far as I can tell anyway. And after what all she wants me to install, it might be cheaper in the long run to build her our upgrade computer. I'll speak to her tomorrow about this option. yep, I think that would be best all around.

PL,

That was Doug LOL.

BUT I have had issues with Maxtor and WD in master / slave configurations. I don't think you have a bad mobo - because if you have either the WD OR the Maxtor - you see both ROM drives and hard drive.

What I have done (and this is the EXACT reason I did it) was when you could get Intel 865 mobo, they had SATA and IDE connections. The SATA was / is the primary boot and IDE could be ANYTHING.

I usually will take the "original" drive and make an image to my SATA drive. Down system, connect "replacement" drive and restore image from SATA.

If you have a bootable floppy (Ghost 9 did allow you to make a boot floppy), you could probably make an image to another drive and then restore the image to the destination drive you want.

[photolady]

I'm sorry Doug.....I just was so frustrated with this computer I scrolled back to see the name and saw D, didn't think Doug........me bad!!

John.....I know I got that one right. LOL I have seen this happen in both Intel and AMD computers. So it's not one or the other that's the problem, it is mostly the mobo in question usually.

Ok Dan......Neither of these drives are SATA the board doesn't have SATA on it any where I could see, makes no difference even if it did because of the drives being IDE. Well, I could try imaging the drive but where to put it? On cd's? When half the time I can't get her cd drives show, probably not the best solution. On another drive? Can't do that either since it won't read any other drive and I don't have another Maxtor in my shop. I stopped carrying those when I became shop manager.

Too bad there is no way to test IDE controllers....

Would this problem arise when the psu is only 250w?

[Seth]

Photolady,

Does the issue exist in the bios as well as the os? In other words, does the os match what the bios shows?

Also, I've seen some crazy IDE detection that was solved by running the slave without a jumper. If you try this, then at the same time, disconnect the optical drives.

[Seth]

Also, do you know if IDE detection was fine before you tried to add the slave? If so, then the problem has to be incorrect jumpering on the WD, a short (or something like that) on the WD, or an insufficient psu.

[photolady]

I know where the jumpers go Seth. ;) So I don't think that's the problem. I can't see what it is doing in windows because I can't get to windows with both drives attached. The computer hangs during P.O.S.T.

And the WD is brand new. I've never had a broken out of the box WD. And slaves fine to my shop computer. On WD with jumpers, it's no jumper for master, then you have a jumper setting for Master w/slave and then you have CS and another for PK.

Now that Maxtor has: Jumper as Master/PK (same jumper setting for both; Jumper as Slave and Jumper as CS. No Jumper setting for Master w/slave as the WD has.

I've never seen this happen before, and I had a Maxtor in my computer I'm using now with my 200gb WD and don't have these problems.

I think tomorrow I'll try a new power supply and see if that gets me anywhere. First I'll disconnect the opticals.

[Seth]

I know where the jumpers go Seth. ;)

Yes, of course.:) I'm fully aware that you're a computer technician.

If I were speaking to you in person, I wouldn't have mentioned the jumpers. However, since this is a public forum, and many novice users may read the thread, I post all possible solutions.

[photolady]

Even so, being the technician I am, the question didn't really need to come into play. Not all questions on harddrive install need to include those instructions, if the user is known to already have this knowledge. And since I had already stated where I'd set the jumpers....your question was irrelevant. :D

[Seth]

Even so, being the technician I am, the question didn't really need to come into play. Not all questions on harddrive install need to include those instructions, if the user is known to already have this knowledge. And since I had already stated where I'd set the jumpers....your question was irrelevant. :D

I didn't ask a question regarding the jumpers, I stated incorrect jumper settings as one possible cause. And I know you stated where you set the jumpers, however that's irrelevant considering:

1) Maxtors and WD's don't always want to cooperate on a single channel. One known solution for this is to remove the jumper on the slave (but only if removing the jumper is a "null" mode). The other solution is simply to not have the hard drives on the same channel. The latter may very well work for you.

2) As I already said, there is going to be inexperienced users who read the thread. Very few of them would think of removing the jumper from the slave, or using the Hd's on separate channels. So what you may consider irrelevant, is valuable information to others.

[photolady]

Disconnecting opticals worked. It's ghosting as I write this.

No going to argue this point any more Seth. You believe what you want and I believe what I want. end of subject.

[Seth]

Disconnecting opticals worked. It's ghosting as I write this.

No going to argue this point any more Seth. You believe what you want and I believe what I want. end of subject.

Photolady,

I'm not arguing anything. I merely provided solutions to the problem in a manner that's consistant with a public forum. One of my suggested solutions solved the problem...so it's all good.
:peace:

[Dan18960]

SO BASICALLY Seth and I WERE CORRECT.

The Maxtor and WD did not want to work on the same channel. This has always been an issue with the two manufacturers. Others that cause issues are Quantum, IBM, and Fujitsu with mixed drives. Seagate and WD seem to always just let you do what you want.

And I KNEW they were both IDE - YOU missed my point entirely!

WHAT I SAID IS that I use an Intel 865 mobo BECAUSE it will default to MY SATA drive for booting and doesn't care what I have on the IDE chain. I then ghost the ide drive image to my sata drive, then restore the image to the destination ide drive. That way it doesn't matter if I am working with a Maxtor, Seagate, WD, Quantum, Hitachi, IBM, or Fujitsu (or any other ide drive I might trip over out there).

The method of my process is that the drive jumpers don't have to be changed from their original settings.

PL, cool the attitude a little. I side with Seth - we are hear to assist ALL users and while YOU may know the jumper settings and configurations, Seth is thinking of someone who might have the issue AND not know where to begin.

[photolady]

I'm sorry but being on the same channel was NOT the problem, the problem was the psu. I disconnected the opticals but left the drives on the same IDE channel.

I think I'll just leave you all to your forum. This is the second time you people have treated me like I'm a dunce........don't need it, won't stand of it.

You were both wrong. And I don't need the explanation on how to set jumpers. If you do this everytime time some one has a question about what might be wrong with the computer, and it involves a harddrive, I can see how you all get your posts count up. Just keep telling them how to set the jumpers.......that ought to fix everything.

Gone........

[Seth]

You were both wrong.

What are you talking about? I specifically stated that the psu may be insufficient. I also suggested trying the system without the opticals....AND THAT SOLVED IT.

[mylanta]

Somehow I missed this thread...it is obvious that the psu was the problem, because it is ridiculous to think that a Maxtor drive cannot coexist with a WD, that is absurd...and while it isn't a good idea to put 2 hard drives on the same ide cable, that wouldn't make the system not work. I think the fact that drives were disappearing leads me to believe the psu wasn't so much inadequate as faulty...but we need to not beat subjects to death and over and over beat our chests either when right or wrong. there are plenty of other posts to jump to.

[Seth]

it is ridiculous to think that a Maxtor drive cannot coexist with a WD, that is absurd...and while it isn't a good idea to put 2 hard drives on the same ide cable, that wouldn't make the system not work.

With all due respect Rich, I completely disagree.

You can find examples of the above all over the internet, but not necessarily with a Wd and a Maxtor. I've encountered it about four or five times myself. No matter what jumper combination is used, issues of no boot, or no slave detection does happen in this scenerio.

I've corrected this unusual issue by installing the slave on IDE 2, although once I was able to get them both recognized on IDE 1 by pulling the jumper on the slave. I got that idea from a *** thread, and it worked. See below...

There are many threads on *** stating, "I can't get the slave to be recognized". Most of these fixes are the obvious, but some are unusual. For example, about two months ago a poster at *** posted with this problem. After trying all the obvious corrections, the poster got so frustrated that he tried taking the jumper out of the slave and low and behold, the slave was recognized.

EDIT: Just after writing this post, I began to work on an older Aser Aspire. It had a 2 GB Maxtor, and all I wanted to do was replace it with a 6 GB WD. Simple enough. Well here it is 1 1/2 hours later and I give up on it. The bios refuses to recognize the WD even though it works fine in two other systems. I tried master, slave, cs, no jumper, new cable, new jumper, and even tried all that on IDE2. So I installed the Maxter and tried to slave the WD. System boots fine with Maxter, but under all circumstances, the bios completely ignores the WD. This type of issue has to be some sort of compatability problem between the bios and the Hd's firmware. Upgrading the bios or the firmware would probably correct the problem, but I'm sick of working on it.

[casey]

<b>and while it isn't a good idea to put 2 hard drives on the same ide cable, that wouldn't make the system not work.</b>

This statement surprised me. I've been putting two hard drives on the same IDE cable for years and never had a problem because of it. I would think that running the cable to make it a Hard drive and cd/dvd would cause more problems then the short run to the second hard drive. How do you set up two hard drives and a DVD drive and a DVDRW drive in the same computer?

[mylanta]

<b>and while it isn't a good idea to put 2 hard drives on the same ide cable, that wouldn't make the system not work.</b>

This statement surprised me. I've been putting two hard drives on the same IDE cable for years and never had a problem because of it. I would think that running the cable to make it a Hard drive and cd/dvd would cause more problems then the short run to the second hard drive. How do you set up two hard drives and a DVD drive and a DVDRW drive in the same computer?

Larry,
I have always done what you do when I used ide drives which I actually haven't in my own machines for several years now, and never had a problem. But when I go out on the big forums and listen to the hardware "mavens", they all say you should put primary on ide 1 with a slave of dvd rom, and then secondary as master on ide 2 with dvd burner as slave to it. I cannot remember the reasoning, only the result which had nothing to do with recognition, but rather would produce a better speed and less drag on system. If I had a quarter for everytime I read this, I wouldn't have to work, yet like you I never did it.

But Seth,
If I were to believe that different brand drives create a recognition problem, I would believe I am in the show "Ghost Whisperer" or some such thing as I have always mixed drives of any brand, at least in the days I bought Maxtor and IBM Deathstars, which are a long time ago.
This pc I'm on is a hold over where it has a Maxtor sata (one snuck by me and it actually was free from Amex) and my normal WD Raptor and I have used these 2 for almost 3 years now in 2 pc's.
What you are encountering is an old pc that shoule have been retired, and the dust mollecules line up better with WD than Maxtor is all. I mean really learning the answer to why that is, will not help us in our business as the right answer is to refuse to work on such crap, which I do anyway. I haven't worked on Me or 98 now in over 2 years and I explain to the customer that I would be screwing them if I charged them hourly to "wipe and load" their OS which would take 15 minutes and then bill them for 4 hours screwing around trying to find the right drivers for their banished soundcard and onboard (out of focus) graphics card. I personally believe I do my client a service by explaining that to pay me anything to work on something that has been reprieved way too long from it's rightful home (the dumpster), would be offensive to his very being, but I do it in as nice a way as is possible.

[Dan18960]

Well since this topic is almost mute at this point since it seems PL has solved her problem, I can only say that in almost 20 years working on computers I have NEVER had a problem with drives connected to the same IDE cable WHEN they married well.

I have had issues as I stated with Maxtor and Quantum drives with others in weird configurations. Sometimes the Maxtor ONLY wanted to be the slave drive, sometimes it would only want to be the master, and other times it didn't matter which configuration I used - it would not see anything but another "like" drive as a companion. I had Maxtors fire right up with another Maxtor and not want to see a WD of the same size. I have had Seagates that didn't want to play well with Quantums or Maxtors but would go on their merry way with a WD? I guess that is just the way of this field (computers) - somethings just can't be explained they just ARE.

[mylanta]

Well since this topic is almost mute at this point since it seems PL has solved her problem, I can only say that in almost 20 years working on computers I have NEVER had a problem with drives connected to the same IDE cable WHEN they married well.

I have had issues as I stated with Maxtor and Quantum drives with others in weird configurations. Sometimes the Maxtor ONLY wanted to be the slave drive, sometimes it would only want to be the master, and other times it didn't matter which configuration I used - it would not see anything but another "like" drive as a companion. I had Maxtors fire right up with another Maxtor and not want to see a WD of the same size. I have had Seagates that didn't want to play well with Quantums or Maxtors but would go on their merry way with a WD? I guess that is just the way of this field (computers) - somethings just can't be explained they just ARE.

Man I have never seen any of that...

[casey]

But when I go out on the big forums and listen to the hardware "mavens", they all say you should put primary on ide 1 with a slave of dvd rom, and then secondary as master on ide 2 with dvd burner as slave to it. I cannot remember the reasoning, only the result which had nothing to do with recognition, but rather would produce a better speed and less drag on system

I just can't imagine the problems you would create by trying to run the IDE cable from the (primary) up to the Cd/dvd drive and then running the cable from the slave up to the cd/dvd drive and all this with the floppy drive in the middle(I still use floppies). I haven't ever tried this or even thought of it but I'm not sure I have a IDE cable that would spread that far, not saying the air flow blockage....

[dbarrow]

IF you are recording cd to cdrw drive direct, placing one on each IDE bus was recommended for speed as there was less conflict with flow, ie: copying cd to cd direct, otherwise, there was a possibility of buffer underrun because it was moving the same data on the same bus between 2 different devices.
The device you use to burn or source should be on a different bus from the drive you use to store/buffer... 2 way flow so it won't strangle or pause the bus.

I always put a hd primary and (or,cable select using 2nd connector) put the cd/dvd device 2nd. Never had a conflict.

Real PITA came on this machine where I added a Plextor DVDrw/cdrw SATA as a third SATA device. Can't use it as a boot device as Windows has to load the SATA drivers first before it can be seen. The (bundled) Roxio software that came with it refuses to recognize it (works fine on other machines). My solution was to add a cheap Mad Dog cd on IDE.
Now that was a PITA because it is a full tower case and stretching the longest IDE cable I could find was a very tight fit indeed! Since this mobo only has one IDE bus, I had to put the HD on the 2nd connector and stretch the end one all the way up to the cd bay ... barely.

I have mixed WD with Maxtor on the oldest machine without problems. Generally, I build with all identical drives and order them all at once.
When I built this machine, I had 2x200 SATA Maxtors.
One was DOA out of the box and they replaced it with a 250 (less than a week!) They seem to get along just fine.
The 200 on the IDE gets on ok with the cd.

With all make drives, always check the mnfr site for firmware updates as all have had problems with certain boards and BIOS. Both WD and Maxtor have some firmware flashes to apply to the onboard controller on the drives to correct issues where the BIOS fails to see the drive.

[mylanta]

.

Now that was a PITA because it is a full tower case and stretching the longest IDE cable I could find was a very tight fit indeed! Since this mobo only has one IDE bus, I had to put the HD on the 2nd connector and stretch the end one all the way up to the cd bay ... barely.



Doug I am contemplating exactly that for the same reason on an Intel mobo with only one ide controller. What does it easily is a 36" rounded cable as there is 1' between the ide plugs which will cover the span of most cases and the rounded doesn't obstruct anything.



With all make drives, always check the mnfr site for firmware updates as all have had problems with certain boards and BIOS. Both WD and Maxtor have some firmware flashes to apply to the onboard controller on the drives to correct issues where the BIOS fails to see the drive

Absoluely ou***anding thought and probably what Seth and others are running against. Damn I used to know that too, but honestly I have always mixed anything I had and never had a problem.

[Seth]

With all make drives, always check the mnfr site for firmware updates as all have had problems with certain boards and BIOS. Both WD and Maxtor have some firmware flashes to apply to the onboard controller on the drives to correct issues where the BIOS fails to see the drive.

Correct.

That's why in my last post I said that a firmware update would likely correct the problem.

Also, with that Acer, I found out the mobo has a dual bios (Acer and OEM) that is controlled by a jumper. So I'll try that first. I did say I was sick of working on it, but I just can't seem to leave a computer problem unsolved.:)

[kern]

...but we need to not beat subjects to death and over and over beat our chests either when right or wrong. there are plenty of other posts to jump to.


agreed. lets stick to our goal- users HELPING users....

Photolady please come back!

[mommalina]

agreed. lets stick to our goal- users HELPING users....

Photolady please come back!

Ditto, ditto, ditto, ditto......


Lina