Anyone here knows a lot about IDE Drives? (Master/Slave/Etc.)

[LUCI5R]

Ave,

Hey Guys, I'm wondering if someone can help me out with my IDE Drives problem. Someone who knows a bit about IDE Drives setup in a system.

I just upgraded to ASUS P5Q Deluxe, Core 2 Quad Q9450 & OCZ Platinum Edition 4GB PC2-8000 Dual Channel Kit.

I have a SATAII Hard Drive, which is my primary OS hard drive and that's running fine, no problems there.

Here's the problem:

I have 3 IDE Drives. 2 DVD Burners + 1 Hard Drive.
My (P5Q) Motherboard only has 1 IDE Port which supports upto 2 drives. So I connected my 2 DVD Burners to that.
I have a Silicon RAID Card (PCI) installed to which I connected my IDE Hard Drive.

Now, no matter what I do - if I connect the IDE Hard Drive using the RAID Card - my PC pauses at this during boot up:

Marvell 88SE61xx Adapter - BIOS Version 1.1.0.L70d
Initializing.

It doesn't budge from there no matter what. As soon as I disconnect my IDE Drive, everything works fine. The RAID Card has all its' drivers installed and shows up as working fine in my device manager.

I personally think it has something to do with JUMPER Settings on the 3 IDE Drives (Master, Slave, Cable Select, etc.). Currently this is what I have:

1st DVD Burner Jumper is set at "Master"
2nd DVD Burner doesn't have any Jumper set (Basically a "Slave")

For the Hard Drive, I have tried to put the Jumper on every possible option given on that Hard Drive, but they all produce the same result.

Does anyone know what JUMPER settings I should set the 3 IDE Drives to? Or what else I can do for my IDE Hard Drive to work in the system?

Thanks!!

[MikeB12]

that looks like it's more an issue with the card than your jumper selections.

ide config is easy.
it's just master on the end of the cable, and slave in the middle... jumpered accordingly..

have you tried connecting all the devices to the 2 ports on the raid card and disabling the onboard ide from bios... see what happens...

[LUCI5R]

it's just master on the end of the cable, and slave in the middle... jumpered accordingly..

Believe it or not, I didn't even know that. i don't even know if my 2 DVD Burners are setup/jumpered that way. I'll check.

have you tried connecting all the devices to the 2 ports on the raid card and disabling the onboard ide from bios... see what happens...

Hmm, actually no - I didn't even think of that. Going to give that a shot (At work right now, will be home later this evening).

Question: When you don't put any Jumper on the Drive, does that make it a slave?

[MikeB12]

you need to check the jumper diagram, it'll tell you which jumper selections mean what...

there's only 3 selections.
1. master
2. slave
3. cable select

cable select just means it should automatically assign it master or slave depending on where it's connected on the cabel. (end=master and middle=slave)
but I usually jumper them manually and plug them in accordingly, I never use cable select, just to remove any doubt...

[LUCI5R]

you need to check the jumper diagram, it'll tell you which jumper selections mean what...

there's only 3 selections.
1. master
2. slave
3. cable select

cable select just means it should automatically assign it master or slave depending on where it's connected on the cabel. (end=master and middle=slave)
but I usually jumper them manually and plug them in accordingly, I never use cable select, just to remove any doubt...

Perfect! When I get home I'm going to take a close look at the Jumpers and and how I'm attaching my cable to them, and set it accordingly. I'll take it from there.

If needed, I'll post in a snap of my jumpers on the drive.

Thanks, I appreciate this!

[MikeB12]

just in case this info is missed...

each ide controller can have a master and slave.
but when you only have one device on the controller it should always be master, with no slave...

so you should end up with 2 cdroms on one controller as a master and slave...
the the hd on another controller as a master.


imo, if you have problems using the onboard ide, disable it from bios and just use the controllers on the card for all the devices.

[LUCI5R]

so you should end up with 2 cdroms on one controller as a master and slave...
the the hd on another controller as a master.

Actually that was my understanding as well, and that's how I planned on setting it up ... in fact, that's how I did set it up but I was getting that error/freeze with the Hard Drive. I'm not sure though if I have the Cables setup properly (i.e., end of cable to Master, 2nd one to Slave). I don't know how much of a difference that would make, but I'll sort it out and begin here.

imo, if you have problems using the onboard ide, disable it from bios and just use the controllers on the card for all the devices.

It's actually the other way round. The 2 DVD Burners are connected to the Onboard IDE, and are working fine. It's a soon as I plug the IDE on the RAID Card that everything stops working.

Let me play around now that I'm equipped with better knowledge, and work out some scenarios.

Thanks!

[LUCI5R]

Mike,

Solved the problem over the weekend. It was the RAID card I was using. I bought this RAID card about 4 years ago - and I don't even think it was supported by Vista. No matter what combination I tried, nothing worked.

Fortunately I had a newer VIA SATA Card lying around, which had an IDE port. As soon as I plugged in my IDE Hard Drive - it just simply worked! I've had no problems whatsoever.

I removed that old RAID Card and am using this VIA Card now. Everything is working fine. Made sure I was using the correct end of the cables, and I've set it up like this:

OnBoard IDE: 1 Master DVD Burner, 1 Slave DVD Burner
VIA SATA Card: 1 Master Hard Drive

Thanks!