Greetings,

My PC hanged at the XP loading logo some time ago. I noticed the DVD-ROM light was persistently flashing, so I uplugged it from the mainboard and tried to start my PC again. Windows booted first time. I figured the problem was a faulty DVD-ROM, so I bought a new one. The new one did the same thing as the last one. Now my CDRW is doing the same thing. I now have no DVD-ROM or CDRW connected to the mainboard at all.

Any ideas?

Sounds like an IRQ conflict. Try resetting the CMOS or put the BIOS at default settings.

1st thing to do would be to make sure you have your IDE devices configured correctly:

prim master = HDD w/OS
prim slave = optical reader
2ndary master = optical writer
2ndary slave = none (or 2nd HDD if you have one)

Use the master/slave jumper settings...do NOT use cable select

Asus A7N8X-X
1800+ @ 8.5 x 200MHz
768MB PC3200
Asus A9550 128MB/128-bit
Gamer Edition
WinME/WinXP Pro

Jam,
I have to say something here as I have seen this scenario before. You may be right in not setting hard drive with hard drive and cdrom with cdrw, but I have always put cd rom and cdrw on one cable and two hard drives on the other and never had a stitch of trouble running about 50 machines that way. I do slave the cdrw to the cdrom but that's all.
And this cannot have anything to do with why he cannot see these drives. My question is are the drives jumpered properly though?

Rich, putting two optical drives on the same cable does not ALWAYS cause a problem, but it does happen. It 'might' be limited to some motherboard chip sets.

My drives worked correctly for a long time before this problem surfaced.

If it's a jumper issue, the problem should have been apparent from day 1.

Could this be a mobo problem?

Neglected to mention, I ran my new DVD-ROM on an exclusive connection to the mobo. And I changed the data cable.

Hi

I've got a similar problem to this. Not sure if I should start a new thread or post as a reply here. Apologies if I've done the wrong thing.

My system config is:

EP-8KTA3+PRO motherboard
LG DVD ROM master, IDE2
Lite-On DVD R/RW model SOHW-1673S slave, IDE2
60 Gig HDD IDE1

Previously I had the DVD ROM as slave on IDE2 and a CD R/RW as master. This config worked but, on changing to the new drive setup, the computer doesn't seem to be able to find my hard drive ("disc boot failure - insert system disc"). Disconnecting the DVDs produces a successful boot. I've tried them in different master/slave setups. Even worse, connecting any one of them produces the same problem now. Ive tried resetting the BIOS options, but no joy. Drivin' me nuts and I'd be grateful for any input.