A simple thing gone wrong...

[DogSRoOL]

I'm trying to install a zip drive in my computer. The zip is the master, my CD-Rom is the slave. Both are secondary IDE's. BIOS will only recognize both of them if the zip is set as the slave, only it recognizes them incorrectly, or not at all (either one or both). The problem is that when it recognizes both, my zip is read as a 102 GB removeable disk, or as only 50MB; my CD-rom (which normally says "CDROM, MODE 4" at startup) says something else. Or one of the drives will not show anything (not even "NONE" as it usually would), or it will display a string of strange characters. The results seem to be inconsistent each time I unplug and replug the IDE cable. I've tried as many different setups as I can think of. Any suggestions?

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"The Just shall live by faith." - Galatians 3:11
To edit is human... To COG is divine!!

[Anoying posts] + 1.

[DogSRoOL]

Also, the zip was pulled from a Compaq, and my computer is not a Compaq. However, it works perfectly when the CD-ROM is not connected.

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"The Just shall live by faith." - Galatians 3:11
To edit is human... To COG is divine!!

[Anoying posts] + 1.

[finity5]

A BIOS update?

[NoESC]

turn both secondary master and slave off in the bios and see what windows does


[This message has been edited by NoESC (edited August 22, 2003).]

[DogSRoOL]

Windows does whatever bios says has been set up.

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"The Just shall live by faith." - Galatians 3:11
To edit is human... To COG is divine!!

[Anoying posts] + 1.

[NoESC]

not always, i just turned my primary slave hdd off in the bios and it still shows up in windows ;-)

btw i have an FIC pentium 4 mobo with a SIS chipset and AMI Bios i think

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if i was me i would not say such things

[DogSRoOL]

Hmm... I'll try some new things since I've finally re-installed Windows (from previous problems, reformatting, etc.). I'm also downloading a new upgrade from soyo.com for my BIOS. Maybe that'll help. The motherboard (I think) is 1995. *gasp*

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"The Just shall live by faith." - Galatians 3:11
To edit is human... To COG is divine!!

[Anoying posts] + 1.

[DogSRoOL]

Nothing worked. I tried messing around with cables. When I use a standard CD-ROM cable, it works fine. BIOS reports the exact model of the Zip drive and everything (CHS). If I flip the cable around, it reports LBA, but the rest is still OK. Does the direction of the cable setup actually matter? If so, that may have been the problem all along with the other cable I was using. I know I had it backwards, but that's the only way it would reach both secondary drives. The CD-ROM cable has only one connection, though.

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"The Just shall live by faith." - Galatians 3:11
To edit is human... To COG is divine!!

[Anoying posts] + 1.

[Argath]

Check that the cable is oriented correctly. IIRC, the cable connector on a zip drive is reversed from that on a CD-ROM, so you'll need to twist the cable.

Just be sure that the striped edge of the cable is pointing to the edge labeled "pin 1" on each drive and on the motherboard.

If the cable is fine, try disabling the BIOS's autodetection for the zip drive.

[This message has been edited by Argath (edited August 24, 2003).]

[DogSRoOL]

At some point in my connecting/disconecting, I apparently screwed up the cable because it won't work at all now, not even on my hard drive where I took it from. I'll have to buy a new one.

And my zip drive's pin setup is exactly identical to my CD-ROM, and the cable will fit only one way because of the notch at the top of it.

------------------
"The Just shall live by faith." - Galatians 3:11
To edit is human... To COG is divine!!

[Anoying posts] + 1.