On my one of my computers, the hard drive and optical drive are not being detected right at startup. I tried pushing in the connectors, but that did not work. Does anyone know how I can solve this problem?

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Did you try going into the BIOS setup screen and checking the IDE settings in there?

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

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Is this a new installation or did a device stop being recognized? Are these separate cables on different ide ports or one cable on the same port? If on the same port, is one configured as slave, the other master? Is the cable in the right direction? (Some cheap cables can be reversed.) Are both devices getting power? And of course, check the BIOS.

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

They are not new devices, the hard drives are on the same cable on one port and the optical drive is on another, I'm not sure about the slave/master, but it wasn't giving me problems before, the cables are in the right direction, everything is getting power, and I have tried the BIOS, and it just says that it does not detect any IDE cables.

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"Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as earth]....Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." -Dan Quayle

So, did anything change? Did you open the box, or did you just turn on the machine and previously working drives were ignored?

If it just happened, I might wonder about the power supply, or a power surge.

On the master/slave issue, that matters if you have two drives on the same port.

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

I know that it matters if there are two drives on the same port, but I have had this computer for about 4 months, and I didn't have trouble with the master and slave before.

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"Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as earth]....Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." -Dan Quayle

The IDE cable may have failed, replacements are cheap, Circuit City or CompUSA still carry them. If this is an older system, it should have two IDE cables, try the the other one first.

Make sure the drives are getting power. Check the power cables, make sure they are firmly seated.

If you have the system manual, follow the instructions and do a BIOS reset, instructions should also be available someplace on the Internet.

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I ask again: Did you open the box? Did you change anything? Did it just happen with no warning?

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

stupid question...do you know what a jumper is?

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also...i may have misread but...you have to have both hard drived on the same ide cable...if you dont then it can cause problems.

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"I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details."
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No, that's not really true. It's not wrong exactly, but it's not right either.

So long as you don't set up a hard drive or burner as slave to a slower device (like any sort of CD-Rom or burner) on the same channel, you're fine.

It's also a good idea to not put a burner on the same channel as the drive you're burning from, but as burners get better, it's less important as it was before.

I've found this arrangement to be generally optimal, although it can complicate the cabling somewhat in larger-than-usual or smaller-than-usual cases.

--------Master--------------Slave------
IDE 0: OS+Apps Hard Drive -> DVD+-RW
IDE 1: Data Hard Drive -----> DVD-ROM

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Agreed. The other questions and suggestions presented really won't help you unless and until you answer Van Rijn's question. We really need to narrow the problem down.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
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Nothing was changed with the IDE drives. One day the optical drive just failed to show up at My Computer, and a few days later nothing could be detected.

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"Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as earth]....Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." -Dan Quayle

Sounds like a problem either with the cabling or the motherboard itself.

Fortunately, cabling is cheap. Make sure, however, you get EIDE cables (blue or green connectors), not the older IDE cables (gray or black connectors). Try replacing the cables, but just in case the drives are set to cable-select, try to put the new cables on the same way the old ones were on.

If that fails, you may need to bring the machine into a techie-shop and have them test the drives and/or motherboard.

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In Fallout 3, 'happiness' is a warm junkyard dog and a loaded gun. It's mostly the loaded gun.
- Moose's one-line review.

"your going to regret that one. You are now a colonoscope...
- Chrissy, corrupting PraedSt's wish.

Hmm. You said earlier that the optical drive is actually on the second IDE channel, while the hard drives are on the first, correct?

I would think it would be kind of unusual for both cables to go bad so close together (not to mention the drives themselves), so I'd put my money on a motherboard problem.

Sorry.

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SeanF

"Ask to understand, but don't challenge unless you have the knowledge."--NEOWatcher

The contents of this post are ©2008 by SeanF and may not be copied or retransmitted in any form without the express written consent of SeanF

Agreed. If it isn't showing up in BIOS and you didn't change anything, either the Mobo or perhaps a power supply went bad, but I'd bet on the mobo. Sometimes they just go bad. I'd also wonder if you had any lightning storms (electrical surge), or if your CPU wasn't being properly cooled. That might at least get to the cause.

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The Leif Ericson Cruiser

That'd be my thought, as well. I'd lean more towards it being a motherboard problem than a power supply problem, though. Why?

1. If the power supply was bad, we'd be talking about three separate power cables on it being bad, but the motherboard's cable being intact. That's....well, that's damned odd. I've seen one HDD power cable fail before, plenty of times, but not three - when you're that bad off, it's generally the entire power supply. Also, if it were a case of the power supply not delivering the proper voltage or amperage, rather than some of its power cables not working, then I'd still expect the motherboard to not work, because either it wouldn't be getting enough voltage, current, or both.

2. He had the device on one IDE channel, then the devices on the other fail. That's the kind of progressive failure I'd expect if it were the motherboard that failed.

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Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I'll probably be taking the computer to a friend who has a shop within the next couple days and see what he can do about it.

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"Mars is essentially in the same orbit [as earth]....Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." -Dan Quayle

If the devices are on two different cables, it's probablay the IDE controller chip on the motherboard, which would require a new motherboard.

Try unhooking one of the devices, then reconnect it and disconnect the other. Switch ports and repeat. Try the devices in another computer.

If they work in another computer, but not your current one, it's definately the controller chip.

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