Solved Motherboard disowned DVD drive?

[Israfel]

Well, the title may be a little misleading, but here is my problem. I JUST got a TA770 A2+ SE Motherboar, the T series, i dunno if thats any help, all i know is its a Biostar motherboard ><

Anyways, so i took my old HDD, which ISN'T SATA (Whatever that means) It uses one of those "ribbon" cables that usually has 3 black "plugs" on it, 2 for hard drives, and another one for the board itself. Now, what i was able to do with my last board was put a CD drive on the end of the cable instead of an HDD drive.. Now that i tried that again, it won't see my CD drive.. Any help anyone? I am using Windows Vista 32X SP 2 Home basic.. Any help would be wonderful!!

EDIT:
One thing i forgot to ask as well.. I have 4 gigs of Ram installed, but its only reading two?
Represents Processor, Represents first Ram slot
V .....................V
_________ | ......[]
| .............| ......[]
| .............| ......[]
|_________| .....[]

There are 4 Ram Slots, two are green (the first two i think) and two are yellow (The second two) The first two has one 2 gig stick and one 1 gig stick, the next one (the first yellow) has another 1 gig stick... Is this a problem? Why isn't it reading the other gig? I know its good ram o.o

 

[stoneys-nutz]

Hello Israfel,
A x32 bit OS will only recognise 3 Gig of ram so you can take out one of the one Gig sticks and see if it will recognise the three Gig, swap the positions around and see what happens. (does the Bios show two or four Gig of ram ?).
As for the IDE cable and CD player, i would check your Bios settings, just to make sure that it is not set for a Sata CD/DVD drive.
Look in the MB manual and check the position of the ram sticks, (it should show you the configuration), also it may say something about the IDE cable too.
Hope this helps, good luck and post your results.

 

[Israfel]

Hmm, Well i was also wondering, since my old Mobo had 2 IDE ports, could it be that if my DVDRW is set as Master it might mess with it a bit? And as for mow much Ram i am getting in my Bios.. Uhh, i think it only reads 3 gigs... I'd have to check again x.x

OHH, and another question i had was this. How come the Vista's Score thing won't read my Graphics card? Like it gives it an "unrated score" even though i have an NVIDIA GeForce 9400 GT

 

[stoneys-nutz]

Have you re-installed Vista since fitting the new MB ?, it's always better to do a fresh install after fitting new parts, such as MB's.

 

[Israfel]

Like, Format and Install? Because i just have the install disk thingy that came with my PC.. SO what would i do for that?

 

[stoneys-nutz]

Is this an EMachine replacement MB, or is it an upgrade ?.
If it's not an EMachines MB, then i doubt if the recovery disk will work.
Does it have an integrated graphics chip on it, and is it disabled ?.

 

[roy69]

Israfel you need to ensure that the drives on the IDE cable are set to master and slave. This is how the cable knows the difference between the two drives.

If you have a new motherboard that is in any way different from the original then you should do a compleat re-install of vista as Stoneys has said.

I would suggest in investing in SATA technology, even if it is just the HD or DVD drive.

Having both on the same cable will slow down the read capacity of the HD.

Update your system specs as the motherboard you listed works with AMD chips and you have an intel listed.

Looking at the manual which can be downloaded from the web if you need info from here http://www.biostar.com.tw/app/en/t-series/content.php?S_ID=310#

states the the 2 gig would have to go into the first yellow and the 2 1 gig modules would have to go into the green.

 

[Israfel]

Is this an EMachine replacement MB, or is it an upgrade ?.
If it's not an EMachines MB, then i doubt if the recovery disk will work.
Does it have an integrated graphics chip on it, and is it disabled ?.

Well, the board is a totally new MB, different Brand, specs and everything, but i didn't have to do any installing or anything before/after i switched my MB, they just installed by themselves, so i don't know if i even NEED the CD anymore.

Israfel you need to ensure that the drives on the IDE cable are set to master and slave. This is how the cable knows the difference between the two drives.

So, i kinda figured that was one of the problems, i just havn't gotten around to seeing if it actually WAS one of the problems. But one question i have, Does the position of the drive on the cable really matter? MY dad says that my HDD should be on the very end of the cable and my DVD drive should be on the second thingy. But i don't think that really matters so much, as long as you have them set properly to Master and Slave.

One more question, When i boot up my PC, it says my ATAPI Or whatever (My CD drive thing) is incompatable. Is this possibly because of having it set to a master instead of a slave? And yeah, i am planning on getting SATA drives soon, since i don't want a Ton of open slots on my mobo, lol

 

[roy69]

The master drive goes on the end of the cable and the slave in the middle.
It may be that your cd drive neads updating but ensure you have the ide settings correct and the drive has the latest firmware before you go and buy anything.

 

[Israfel]

I didn't think that actually mattered.. Which now poses a problem, since my Cable isn't long enough to keep the Drive's in their slots unless i keep the HDD in the Top slot and the other one in the bottom 5.5 slot Lol. Alright, when i get back from Vacation i will check it out