Second IDE channel not working

[Roundabout]

Hi guys,

I have one that is kind of baffling me at the moment. My old IBM w/ AMD K6-2 350Mhz PC won't read anything from the second IDE channel. The unusual thing is that this channel works before Windows boots. I have a CD-ROM on this channel, and if I place a bootable CD in it and start, it reads the disc normally and I was able to install from it. However, after XP Pro is running, it won't read anything off the same CD-ROM, although it is seen in BIOS and I can see it in Windows Explorer.

If I put a disc in the CD-ROM, it just spins a little and shows that it's reading, but nothing shows in the file window of Explorer. It just clocks and then after a while the disc stops spinning. If I put a HDD on the same channel, the same thing happens. It shows the drive in Explorer, but if I click on it, it never shows anything at all, just clocking as if it were trying to read but can't.

I'm kind of lost on this one, because the IDE channel definintely works before boot-up, so that eliminates cabling and wiring problems, and since the drive is seen in BIOS and in Explorer even after boot, it has to be a setting somewhere, but I sure don't know what it could be. Of course, I checked all the usual master/slave jumpers, though that doesn't matter anyway since it's the only device on the second channel.

Anyone have any ideas of what to look at? Maybe something in device manager? The drive also shows up in device manager, and seems to be working normally when I look at properties.

Haven't run into this particular problem before, so if you have seen something like this and can help, let me know. Thanks!

[808smokey]

Since you have XP go into the device manager and delete all the IDE controllers. THen reboot XP. XP has all the drivers built in so it will reload them on the reboot. That usually works for me

[Roundabout]

Thanks, 808smokey

I'll give that a try sometime this weekend when I can shut down my eMule for maintenance. That's the only thing running on this PC, but I can't burn anything off the HDD because of this problem. Now the drive is full and I have to do something, so I'm hoping that will work. I'll post sometime later and let you know if it worked or not.

Thanks again for the help.

[moviebuff2]

Hello Roundabout:

I had the similar problem. My secondary IDE is connected to my DVD-ROM (as primary) and a CD-ROM (as slave).

During fdisk, formatting and the initial installation of the OS (Win98 SE), with the WIndows 98 disk inside my DVD-ROM, everything went fine. All of these were done in DOS. But when Windows rebooted and tried to finish the installation process, it stopped using DOS and started using Windows 98 O/S. That's when the problem began. I checked on "device manager" and found out my secondary IDE was not working. I suspected the CD-ROM was causing the trouble and unplugged it from the system. Sure enough, everything worked perfectly. My secondary IDE was shown as properly installed. I could use my DVD-ROM to finish the Windows 98 installation plus installing other softwares.

So I very much suspect that your CD-ROM may be defective and cannot be used with an O/S. I'd suggest to you to replace it with another CD-ROM to see if this resolve your problem before buying a new motherboard.

Best of luck to you.

[Roundabout]

808smokey,

I tried what you suggested today, and still no luck. No change at all. What I don't understand is how it can work if the CD-Rom acts as a boot device, but once windows starts, it won't read anything from it anymore. I checked everything in device manager, and it shows the secondary IDE channel as working properly, and it recognizes the CD-Rom drive with the correct model and type.

I uninstalled all the IDE channels like you suggested, and restarted it, and it reinstalled both channels, and still no change. Yet I know this channel works, otherwise the PC couldn't boot from this same ROM drive. If I put in the XP upgrade disc, the PC is able to recognize it and begin installation (although I didn't reinstall XP, I just stopped it). Therefore, there's no doubt the CD-Rom is good, and the IDE channel and cables are good. It's something that happens after Windows starts that prevents it from reading from the disc.

If I click on the drive in Windows Explorer, the CD spins up and activity lite blinks, and the clock (busy) shows on the PC. It will keep spinning as if it were trying to read as long as I click on the E: drive (the drive letter assigned to the CD-Rom). However, in the right pane of the explorer window, it doesn't switch to show the contents of the CD-R disc, the whole thing just sits there clocking until I eject the disc. If there is no disc in the CD-Rom drive and I right click on the E: icon, and select eject, it will do that function normally. Seems like everything is right, but it just refuses to read anything at all as data.

Moviebuff2,

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm very sure the CD-Rom drive works properly - in fact, if I move it to the slave position on the primary IDE channel, it works as it should. Only problem is, the D: drive is my download (120GB) drive, and the C: drive is O/S, and I need to burn stuff off the D: drive, and can't do it because there's no possibility to move it to the E: position. If I do, the same thing happens, I click on it and the PC just clocks and doesn't read anything off the drive.

Basically, I'm screwed, because there's only the Primary IDE working and I can't take out the C: drive, that has the O/S on it - and the D: drive has the data I need to burn, and the E: drive secondary IDE doesn't work.

I'm at a loss for ideas at this point, I've never seen this exact problem before on any PC I've ever worked on. I've searched the net for "secondary IDE not working" but can't seem to find anything that matches my exact problem. Everything in Device Manager shows that it's working properly.

Thanks to both of you, for trying to come up with some ideas. If you think of anything else, please let me know, and if anyone else has any ideas, feel free to chime in.

Thanks again for trying. I'm still working on it, but not much hope at this point.

[uka100]

Not sure if this will work, but worth a try. When I had my CD Drive on the secondary IDE it would give me loads of read errors etc... I fixed it by going into my BIOS and disabling all options like ultra dma mode etc.. try that, in the end I had to do this becuase of a cheap IDE cable, try it you may have the same problem.

[moviebuff2]

Roundabout,

Try these:

1) If your computer has a USB, convert your internal CD-ROM's IDE to USB then use it as an external CD-ROM. There are plenty of inexpensive devices to convert IDE to USB. Go to Yahoo!, type in "ide to usb", you will find those links.

2) If you have a spare CD-ROM (or, if you want, you can buy a new one for testing), replace your current CD-ROM with your spare one to see if it works. There may be some conflict between your current CD-ROM and your system. Even if you have to buy a new one, you can return it if it does not work. And, a CR-ROM costs less (around $10.00) than a motherboard, I think.

[Roundabout]

808smokey, Moviebuff2, uka100,

Thanks, everyone for trying to help. Sorry it took a while to post again, I spent the entire day yesterday and part of today trying to figure out WTH is going on with this PC.

I have determined that it doesn't seem to be a problem in the secondary IDE after all, although it appeared so at first. It's still not working, but here's what I've found.

I unplugged all drives and then reconnected the C: drive as the secondary master with no other drive whatsoever in the system. The PC booted just fine this way. Then when I added the 120GB cap drive as the master on the Primary IDE, of course it stopped working because it was seeing that as the C: drive with no O/S.

Since it booted from the Secondary IDE, it appears not to be a problem with that channel after all, it appears that the PC just doesn't like more than 2 IDE devices connected, in whatever configuration. I reconnected the C: drive to the primary IDE again, then connected the CD-ROM to the Secondary IDE, and it works. Then I added the 120GB drive as the master on Secondary IDE (with CD-ROM as slave) and it stops working.

I tried all manner of configurations, rebooting over and over, and it's the same. Anytime more than 2 IDE devices are in the system, no matter how they're connected, one of them stops working. They're all detected normally, they all show no problems in device manager, but one always stops reading data, usually the CD-ROM. The CD-ROM works fine, this I'm sure of, but this PC just doesn't like more than the 2 devices connected.

So I'm still at a loss, though now I at least I found out the Secondary IDE works and it's not the source of the problem, even though it sure seemed like it at first - took me a while to discover that

I will try putting another CD-ROM in the system, though I don't have one at the moment, just to see what happens.

Thanks again, guys, for all the suggestions. If you come up with something else based on the new information, let me know. I appreciate all your input.

P.S. Moviebuff2, I like your suggestion of using it as a USB drive, and that will probably be my next move, since nothing else seems to be working. This PC is driving me crazy and I've never seen a problem exactly like this before, and I've built several PC's from scratch w/o problems. This P.O.S. is an IBM monster and I'm only using it until I can afford another newer one.