"Although the BIOS seems to find the CDROM in IDE auto search it never really seems to see it during normal boot." As I've already said ""As bootup begins it ID's the HDD but doesn't list the CDROM. Now this is a somewhat older motherboard-probably 6-8 yrs."" "That's not unusual when the bios is older." ......... "...then a new page that says secondary drive not ATAPI compatible." Have you tried disconnecting the data cable to whatever the secondary drive is? ...... We need more info from you. - do you have another connected optical drive you're not mentioning ? A CD or DVD drive? An IDE Zip or IDE tape backup drive? - the make and model, or at least the model, of the motherboard. That is usually printed on the surface of the mboard in obvious larger characters, often between the slots, or hear the middle of the mboard. Often there is a mboard Rev (or R), or Ver (or V)number beside that, or there may be no mboard model, only a Rev or Ver number on the mboard somewhere. If you don't see a model number.... then we need the bios string. The bios string is usually a long string of numbers/letters at the bottom of the first black screen as you boot your computer - it often begins with a date - usually you can press the Pause key to read it and copy it down. Press any key but Pause to continue booting. Post the bios string here, and include any dashes, etc. Please make sure you copied it right. Most Award and AMI Bios strings do not have spaces. Newer Phoenix bios strings, based most often on those for Intel mboards, are often like so: xxxxxxxx.xxx.xxxxxxxxx Sometimes the bios string is not visible because a logo screen is displayed overtop of it while booting. In that case, go into your bios Setup while booting. Sometimes the bios version date, and sometimes the bios version number, are stated in the bios Setup screens somewhere, and/or some show the identifier part of the bios string at the top of one or more screens. Or you could try disabling the display of the logo screen if there is such a setting, or disabling fast boot or similar, which often disables the logo screen. Tell us what you find.

0

Daveincaps-now that's one of the best ideas I've seen. I'll look at the HDD jumpers when I get back home and play with various combinations. Tubes and Wires-no, didn't have any other optical drives installed but I actually got the ATAPI message with no drive installed. That's why daveincaps' comment might be a good one. Also, how does one edit/change a drive controller in BIOS? What do I look for?

0

If you supply the model number or the bios string, we can probably help you a lot better, and we may be able to find exactly what you see in the bios Setup. I've never seen or heard of what DAVEINCAPS mentioned in response 6. However, I've seen some old CD BURNER drives that have extra pins you can install a jumper on to enable or disable DMA mode, and some older mboards have problems with such a drive if DMA mode is enabled on such a drive. " I actually got the ATAPI message with no drive installed." No CD drive installed, or no IDE connected drives installed at all? If that's with no IDE connected drives at all connected via data cables..... assuming you have no SCSI drive controller, and/or no SCSI connected drives, you should NOT get that message! Cause? - Some really old CDRom drives are proprietary and have a 40 pin connector, but they are not compatible with connecting them to an IDE header. If anyone has EVER connected such a proprietary CDRom drive to the IDE headers, that may have damaged the IDE circuits. These cannot apply unless your mboard has ISA slots (usually they're black) and you have cards in those slots: - you can't install an older standard IDE card, or an old multi I/O card that includes an IDE, on a mboard that has onboard IDE, unless you can disable the IDE on the card, because the card wants to use IRQ 14 or IRQ 15 for IDE, the same IRQs as the Primary IDE or the Secondary IDE on the mboard uses. - Old sound cards can have headers for proprietary and/or IDE CDRom drives. Those were meant for use on 486 and previous mboards that have only one IDE controller header on the mboard, or only a single IDE controller on a card in a slot, so the IRQ the drive controller uses can be the same one as is used for secondary ide - IRQ 15. If you use such a sound card on a mboard that has two IDE headers, the mboard secondary IDE and the sound card can be both trying to use IRQ 15 and that will cause problems and sometimes weird error messages. If you can't disable the sound card from using IRQ 15 by means of moving a jumper to disable the drive controller or to change the IRQ used, if you want to be able to use the mboard secondary IDE you have to remove that sound card. - the same thing as for the sound card can apply if there is a cdrom IDE drive controller card (one IDE header)installed that was meant to be used on a 486 or previous mboard with only primary IDE. E.g. I have such a drive controller card for an old IDE NEC 2X drive - it uses IRQ 15 and that IRQ cannot be changed or disabled. I have a later ISA SB16 sound card I can connect that drive to and select an IRQ other than 14 and 15 - enabling the support of 5 IDE connected drives on a mboard with the standard two IDE controllers/headers. If you are getting the message when no IDE drive at all is connected, and no other drive other than a floppy drive is connected at all, via data cables, there is probably nothing you can do that will get rid of that message. Disconnecting the power to the drive(s) without disconnecting the data cable may not get rid of the message. If you're confused as to how to set the bios settings - load bios defaults, save settings - if they are not already set that way, set the drive detection to Auto by the method Auto if you can do that for all IDE drive connections, or if you can't, have it detect the drives; then save settings - the bios will almost always then be set correctly regarding the drives. There is usually no setting regarding the drive controllers in the bios other than enabling or disabling them.

0

At least some seagate drives have a jumper setting for 'Drive as master with a non-ATA-compatible slave': http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j... That's what I was thinking of. I don't know if incorrectly setting that jumper will result in 'not atapi compatible'. It might depend on the bios. But if the message is coming with no cdrom attached I think you have to look at the HD jumpers. Also, one of the google returns for that problem said it was fixed when he 'moved the HD from the center connector of the primary ribbon to the end connector': http://forums.windrivers.com/showth... I found that after I posted #6. I think it's just about got to be due to the hard drive, either position on the cable or jumpers or maybe both.

0

The same applies - he should NOT get the error message when no drives at all are connected. "At least some seagate drives have a jumper setting for 'Drive as master with a non-ATA-compatible slave':" I have seen that, and on some WD and other brands of drives too, but that's usually only needed for really old IDE hard drives. "Also, one of the google returns for that problem said it was fixed when he 'moved the HD from the center connector of the primary ribbon to the end connector':" That guy must have had the IDE drive(s) on that (or both) set to cable select, or one was set to cable select, the other to master or slave, in which case the drives are detected okay in some situations but not in others. Make sure both drives on the same IDE cable are set to either master/slave, or cable select. I never use cable select myself. If you use cable select, if the drive is by itself on the data cable it should be on the END connector of a 3 connector data cable, which designates it as master - connecting it to the middle connector designates the drive as slave when you use cable select. Older bioses may not recognize the drive properly in that case - if it is by itself, and jumpered slave, or on the middle connector and jumpered cable select - newer bioses may recognize it properly anyway, whether it is by itself and jumpered slave or on the middle connector and jumpered cable select. In rare cases a 40 wire data cable originally from a brand name computer system may be cable select only - in that case one wire's connection is missing between the middle and end connector on a three connector data cable and the cable may be labelled cable select only or similar. I have never encountered such a cable myself. Some 40 and 80 wire data cables are labelled mboard on one end, master on the other end, slave on the middle connector. That almost always DOES NOT indicate they are cable select only cables, and if you use master /slave jumpering, the drives can connect to either the middle or end connector - if cable select or cable select only is not printed on the cable, it probably is NOT cable select only. I have never encountered a 40 wire IDE data cable that cannot be connected backwards - with the end nomally connected to the mboard going to a drive. If you are using an 80 wire UDMA 66 or UDMA 100/133 data cable, the one end MUST go to the mboard, usually it's blue, or in any case, it's farther from the middle connector on a three connector cable. (UDMA 66 cables usualy have no blocked holes in the connectors; UDMA 100/133 cables usually do have one pin hole blocked or not there) I've never come across a cable select only 80 wire data cable - using either master/slave or cable select jumpering on all drives on the same cable has always worked. 40 wire and 80 wire data cable connectors both have 40 (or 39) pin holes. They look the same when the cable is installed, but the 80 wire connector has (up to) 40 more connections on the back side of the connector next to the cable where you can't see them.

0

I'm not sure if 'non-ata' means an old IDE drive or atapi or both. The fellow who moved the drive indicated he only had one drive attached. It may also depend on if the 80-wire cable has one of its wires cut for cable select only.

0

Try a new IDE cable.

0

"I'm not sure if 'non-ata' means an old IDE drive or atapi or both." As far as I know it only applies to old IDE hard drives. I don't recall ever having an IDE CD drive of any age that needed the alternate jumpering if it was slave. "The fellow who moved the drive indicated he only had one drive attached." In that case, he was probably using cable select jumpering on the drive, and his bios was old enough it could not recognize the drive properly unless it was in the proper place - connected to the end connector on a three connector data cable. I've fiddled with probably over a hundred 40 and 80 wire data cables on systems, some brand name systems, and I've never encountered one that was cable select only that I know of, but I've heard some old 40 wire ones in brand name systems are (probably older than 6 or 8 years - I have some that old, and older).

0

Most of the 80-wire cables I've pulled from systems had the one wire cut which I think indicates CS only. Compaqs seem to always be that way. But I don't recall ever running across a 40-wire cable like that, or maybe I just didn't notice. This: http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j... does say the 'non ata compatible' jumper setting should be used ". . .if the drive is Master to a CD-ROM, tape drive or other non-ATA drive." But I don't recall ever using that setting on the rare times I've had a seagate in that cabling configuration. Of course we don't know if a seagate drive is involved. The person who changed the drive's position on the cable was using a 60 gig maxtor. At this point I'm inclined to believe that's the problem rather than it being jumpered as having a non-ata compatible slave but with no slave present. (edit) I just noticed the seagate link in my #10 says of non ata compatible drives, "This is usually ATAPI devices like CD-ROMs plus Limit Capacity"

0

"I just noticed the seagate link in my #10 says of non ata compatible drives, "This is usually ATAPI devices like CD-ROMs plus Limit Capacity" That's good info - something I had not noticed before. sky42 Some hard drives have an alternate way you can set jumpering for a hard drive as master when there is a slave drive on the same cable - that info may be on the label for the drive, or not. In any case that info is stated on the manufacturer's web site in the jumper info for the drive model. If the drives on the same cable are both jumpered cable select, they should both be recognized properly in any case. On some drives, the info on the label is confusing, e.g. the jumper info on the label may be upside down in relation to the back of the drive - if the label shows where the power connector is, go by the relation of where you install or don't install jumpers in relation to the power connector.

0

Thanx to all for your comments - will post back if I make any progress on this pesky issue. OBTW-when I said I got the error message with no CDROM attached- that was true, but I may have left the CDROM IDE cable plugged into the mobo. I'll try it again with the cable removed. Can you all imagine the responses that would be generated from a worthwhile issue?

0

"....I may have left the CDROM IDE cable plugged into the mobo. I'll try it again with the cable removed...." That should make no difference, unless there's something wrong with the IDE cable.

0

Time to close this one out. I finally got BIOS to recognize the CDROM ATAPI by: (1) using an old CDROM; (2) Setting both HDD and CDROM jumpers to master; (3) setting both HDD and Secondary drive to auto and NOT doing an auto IDE search. (It kept returning the HDD setting to user.) So it would boot up to the page which displays the HDD and ATAPI CDROM ID's but wouldn't go any further. I discovered the mobo connector for the floppy had 3 pins missing, so at this point I said enough is enough. But I learned something so thanx again to everyone.

0

Thanks for tying up the thread. "I discovered the mobo connector for the floppy had 3 pins missing.." One pin missing is normal. I wonder how someone managed to do that. Did you try disabling the floppy controller, and removing a bootable floppy from the boot order?

0

Depending on what pins are misssing, it may be OK. This is the pinout for a floppy drive: http://www.interfacebus.com/PC_Flop... All the odd numbered pins are ground and could all be soldered together. As already mentioned, 1 pin missing is common but on rare occasions I've come across drives and/or MOBO connections that are missing several ground pins.

0