No CDROM Drive Detected on Windows 2000/XP on SS7 Machine \ VOGONS

No CDROM Drive Detected on Windows 2000/XP on SS7 Machine

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First post, by GunghoGeoduck

Posted on 2025-01-31, 15:55

GunghoGeoduck Offline

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Location: Ohio, USA

Hey guys, I was wondering if any of you have run into this or have any solutions...

I have a Super 7 rig with an ALI Aladdin V chipset which runs gorgeously with DOS-based operating systems (inc. W9X) but for some reason, NT5.x won't detect my optical drive.
It will boot from the CD and complete the text-based portion of the setup, and will even seem to access the disk in the "Please Wait" screen in the graphical portion too, but once the hardware detection phase completes, the next time it needs to install something, it tells me to insert the CD, but the only drives that are available are A and C. This happens on both 2K and XP. I have not tried earlier versions of NT.

I tried pre-installing 2K on another machine then moving the drive over to this PC which worked, but it still never detected an optical drive even after installing all the drivers I could think of from USB.

For troubleshooting, I switched off UDMA to my secondary IDE controller in my BIOS, changed ribbon cables to a 40-conductor one, and also swapped DVD drives. Nothing changed.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Reply 1 of 4, by STX

Posted on 2025-01-31, 16:04

STX Offline

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Try connecting both the HDD and the optical drive to the primary IDE channel, and don't use the secondary IDE channel. You'll loose a little bit of throughput, but that's OK if the optical drive works again reliably.

Reply 2 of 4, by GunghoGeoduck

Posted on 2025-02-03, 15:13

GunghoGeoduck Offline

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Joined: 2022-12-12, 22:36
Location: Ohio, USA

That absolutely worked! Thanks!
Puzzling though that Win2K sees the secondary controller in device manager, but it won't communicate using it.
Maybe it's just old chipset vs "new" NT way of doing things.

Anyhow, I'll test some different configurations and report back what I find.

Reply 3 of 4, by STX

Posted on 2025-02-05, 13:28

STX Offline

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My guess is that your motherboard's second IDE channel suffers from a partial intermittent failure due to electromigration, for which there will be no reliable configuration using the second IDE channel. I recommend that you enjoy using the PC in the one configuration that works now and treat the second IDE channel as if it doesn't exist. Unless you're planning to burn CDs with this system, you probably won't even notice the lower throughput with both IDE devices sharing the primary channel.

Reply 4 of 4, by STX

Posted on 2025-02-08, 00:11

STX Offline

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...but my electromigration hypothesis doesn't explain why the secondary IDE channel works well in Windows 9X. I don't know. Just do what works and have fun.

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