This is really an old computer that came with a floppy drive in it, and I installed a Sony cd drive from another computer. But I can't get it to work properly. The floppy works fine when the cd drive has no plugs plugged into it. But when I try to plug in the cd drive it won't find it. Also both lights on the floppy and cd drive stay on. The configuration setup keeps coming up 604 disk drive error and 662 configuration change error. I have the master ide plugged into the floppy like it originally was, and the slave from the same ide cable plugged into the cd drive. Also have power plug into the cd drive and floppy drive also. Please help. Thank you

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Is this a Laptop or desktop computer?

If this is a laptop how then are you connecting the cdrom internal or external?

Most laptops you can change from floppy to cdrom by pulling the floppy from the internal bay and inserting the cdrom.

Not sure if a Sony cdrom will work.

It's a desktop computer apparently.

"I have the master ide plugged into the floppy like it originally was, and the slave from the same ide cable plugged into the cd drive."

(Oops - corrections - 28 in the original post has been replace with 34 in the following)

The floppy data cable (34 wires) and IDE data cable (40 wires) are not the same.
The floppy data cable connects only to a 34 pin header/connector on the mboard.
The IDE data cable connects only to a 40 pin header/connector on the mboard.

If you connect a IDE cable to a a 40 pin connector on a sound card, you must be certain the connector on the sound card is IDE, and not proprietary - some old sound cards have 40 pin headers that are not IDE.

Also, some old CD drives with 40 pin connectors are not IDE, they're proprietary -usually ones that are 4X or less - if you connect them to IDE headers on the mboard strange things will happen.
Proprietary CD drives can only be connected to proprietary drive controller headers, often found on old ISA sound cards.
If you tell us what model number it is, we can probably tell you wether it's IDE or not.

If your CD drive has 34 pins, it is NOT IDE, it's a proprietary drive! It must be connected to a proprietary drive controller!

The connectors on older floppy and IDE data cables can often be installed on the pins on a header/connector either way.

Older mboards often have no plastic shroud around those headers to ensure you get them on the pins - if they don't have a shroud, make certain you actually have the connectors properly on the pins.
If they are not on the pins properly it can damage the drive and/or the mboard.

The floppy data cable has wires that flip positions between the middle and the end connector on a 3 connector data cable - the end connector nearest the flipped wires must be connected to a single floppy drive.
The striped side of the data cable must be on the pin one end of the mboard connector, and on the pin one end of the floppy drive connector, or both ends must be opposite that. Sometimes the pin one end is marked with a printed arrowhead or a 1
If one cable connector is backwards, the led on the floppy drive is on all the time the computer is on, and the floppy drive will not work. You may also get other strange symptoms when one connector is backwards.
That doesn't hurt the floppy drive, but it might damage a floppy disk in it if one was inserted at the time.

If it is certain the CD drive is IDE, it sounds like you may have one IDE data cable connector backwards - either on the mboard end or on the CD drive end. On newer CD drives and hard drives, the stripe on the data cable is usually next to the power connector on the drive, but on old drives that may not be the case.

OR you may have the jumper on the drive set wrong. If there is another drive on the same data cable, one must be set to master, the other set to slave - you cannot set both to master, or both to slave.
Or both drives can be set to CS (cable select).

Connecting one connector of the IDE cable to a hard drive or IDE CD drive backwardas may or may not make the led light on the drive up all the time, but thenot drive will work.
It doesn't hurt the drive, as long as the connector was on all the pins.

"The configuration setup keeps coming up 604 disk drive error and 662 configuration change error."

Connecting one connector backwards could have caused these errors.

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This is a desktop computer. The cd unit is sony model #CDU33A-01. the back of the unit has audio out- r-gnd-l slot, which I have a connecting plug, then it has sub I/F which has 10 pin connector, and then main I/F which has 34 pin connector, DC input 12v-grnd-5v which I now is where the power is plugged into. I don't understand what is meant by the jumper? I hope this information will help.

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Yeah, that's got a proprietary data connection and can't be connected to the floppy controller. Your best bet, if you plan on using that one, is to find an older sound card with that connection. I think you can use a floppy cable to connect it as long as it doesn't have the 7-wire twist.

Those were pretty good cdroms for only being double speed. They would even read cd-r disks.

There are no jumpers to set on that drive. This describes the connections:

http://support.dell.com/support/edo...

It describes a 'host adapter card' which you can ignore unless you have that card and want to use it for the drive.

A jumper is a removable plastic piece with no wires to it with metal inside that is used to connect - jumper - two or more pins together on a mboard or a drive or a card - it usually has two holes/positions and is for connecting/jumpering two adjacent pins together.

"I think you can use a floppy cable to connect it as long as it doesn't have the 7-wire twist."

If you use a regular 3 connector floppy data cable use only the middle connector and the end connector that has no flipped wires between the two connectors you use.

Some proprietary CD drives need to have a dos driver installed as well and lines in autoexec.bat / config.sys, that load the dos (real mode) driver and the operating system support for it, the first time you connect them - Win 95 may then install built in Windows drivers and you no longer need the dos driver and the real mode lines in autoexec.bat / config.sys (Win 95 may rem the lines automatically in those).
OR you may be able to / have to manually select the Sony controller driver in Add Hardware - when you search for a non plug-n-play in Control Panel.

Some proprietary drive controllers require an IRQ, some don't.

Some old ISA sound cards with proprietary drive controllers, or stand alone proprietary controllers used only for CD drives, set the required IRQ to 15 and you can't disable or change that. Those cards were meant for 486 or earlier mboards that had only one IDE header, or that had no IDE header at all and used an IDE hard drive controller in card in a slot and that card had one IDE header.
Those will NOT work properly on mboards with two IDE headers. They interfere with the secondary IDE channel on the mboard, often even if you disable the secondary IDE in your bios Setup.

Some later ISA SB16 cards have an IRQ jumper - if so you may need to set it to other than IRQ 15 - and some ISA SB16 cards are PNP and you can set the IRQ used in Device Manager.

I have some old Creative Soundblaster 16 sound cards that have one or more proprietary headers for proprietary CD drives, but I don't think I have ever tried a Sony model .
I have tried Panasonic (Matsushita) ones. They use a 40 pin connection, the wiring is consideralbly different from IDE, they require no IRQ for the driver, you must have a Dos driver and lines in autoexec.bat and config.sys the first time you use them in Win 95 and up so that Windows can see the drive at all, then you can select a Matsushita driver controller if you use Add Hardware and manually select it, and the real mode lines in autoexec.bat and config.sys are no longer needed.
If you boot the computer with a Win 95/98/98SE Startup disk (floppy) there is no driver for Matsushita drives on it but the driver and the line that loads it can easily be added to the floppy.

I accidently connected a proprietary Panasonic (Matsushita) CD drive to a regular IDE mboard header once - the hard drive (on the same data cable?) would not spin at all when the CD drive was connected. Doing that didn't hurt the mboard or the IDE drive controller or the Panasonic drive or the hard drive, but it might have if I had left the CD drive connected long enough.

Thanks to everyone for your advise. I decide not to use this Sony cd drive in this computer. Keep up the great work you do giving advise to all of us who need help.

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