Disc drives no longer work??

When i turn on my computer, it used to load of the Primary master and slave and the secondary master and slave no problems. Now though for some reason it only detects the Primary Master and it leaves the other 3 with 'none'. My disc drives no longer work because of this-my cdrom drive will open but wont read any discs and my dvd drive wont even open. Also I've noticed that the orange light on my cpu is CONSTANTLY on...why?
I've had this same problem before and it automatically fixes itself for random periods of time, then breaks again. Does anyone know whats happening and how to fix this problem?? Also, when it 'half-detects the drives are there, my computer makes a constant clunk, clunk, clunk sound every second and the orange light flashes in time with it????
Please help, thanks

 

Might be loose power conections, or a bad power supply.
Can you tell if the "clunk" is coming from the CD-rom?

As far as the "red light", do you mean by the power switch, or on the mother board. My Dell has a red light on the mother board that is always on unless I unplug the PC from the wall.

Caution- if you are inside the PC, make sure its unplugged and you have pressed the power switch to discharge any residual charge

Welcome to MG

 

Have you checked your cmos settings to make sure it is set to autodetect the drives?

 

Its not any lights on the motherboard that are a certain colour, im on about the orange light on the front of your case that only flashes when you hard discs are doing something. The orange light just stays on when the disc drives dont work. Infact they're not working as i type this write now and i so much want to play my new game, half life 2!
About the clunking sound, i think its from dvd drive! A few days ago when they decided to work again, i put a disc in the dvd drive and it made a srange squeeking sound almost like the laser was doing something??
Im not sure what the CMOS settings are exactly, ive been in the bios and under all the primary and secondary slave master settings etc, all four of them are set to auto. Only one is detected and the other three remain saying 'none'.
Any further help would be highly appreciated. Also, you mentioned about power loss, tell me more about that...
Thanks

 

Try unplugging the power and ide cable from the back of the DVD drive inside the case. Then try booting the PC back up and see what happens.

 

Ive tried taking the 2 cables out of the back of the DVD drive but I can't get them out. The white one is almost like it isn't meant to come out and the small black one won't come out either?

 

Two cables? There should be three on a DVD drive:

• the four-strand power cable terminated by the white Molex connector (yes, they can be quite stubborn when being disconnected)
• the data/signal cable with a 40-conductor connection, and
• the sound cable with three or four strands and a small flat black connector.

Ignore the sound cable. If you can't unplug the power cable, it probably won't hurt to leave it connected, as long as you disconnect the data/signal cable so that the system doesn't see the drive and can't be confused by the drive if it's defective.

You've mentioned that you have a total of four drives connected. What is each of:

• Primary master
• Primary slave
• Secondary master
• Secondary slave?

Which one is working? For the optical drive(s): they have their own indicator lights -- what are they doing when your drive access light comes on and stays on?

If you have disconnected the data/signal cable from any of those drives in the recent past, go back in and make sure that you got the connection the right way round when you reconnected it. On an IDE drive, Pin 1 is the pin in the 40-connection plug that is closest to the power cable. If you have a flat ribbon cable for your data/signal cable, Pin 1 is the side of the cable that is marked with red or blue along the edge of the cable. The motherboard connection should be marked near the cable header to tell you which end of the header is Pin 1.

If the drives are properly connected, disconnect all but the working one, and make sure it's doing what it should. Then re-connect the drives one at a time. If the system resumes its bad behaviour, the last drive connected may be defective. Try it in another machine to be sure.

 

clunk? sounds like head knock to me... open ya compy and with a screwdriver put the end on a drive and repeatedly power it up while listening into the end of the screwdriver...sounds stupid but it works. Also, check the bios and make sure their set to autodetect...Ive had times when my hdd was set to the wrong access mode (trying to locate a sector that wasnt there)...So, set everything to defaults and set the drive controllers to Autodetect and you should be set.

 

If that sound is coming from your DVD-drive it's not so serious (not healthy either) but if it's your HD you're in trouble. Try connecting the drives one at a time with the master and see if one of them causes the problem. Check your cables too. If the problem doesn't seem to be in any of the drives there's always the possibility that your mobo's HD controller is dying, but that's a bit unlikely.

 

I give up with my computer, I turned it on the other day and suddenly both drives worked...and still are. Random I know because I've changed absoulutely nothing!?

 

Me, personally, i would weld that case shut and NOT touch anything...