Sec. IDE channel error and no floppy...

Hi!

I put in my brand new hdd and since I've got 2 problems. Not serious, I think I can live with them, but I thought I'd ask, as I have no idea what happened...

My MSI mobo doesn't support 2 ide channels. Instead I have an ATA cable. I used to have the old hdd as primary master and a new cdrw as sec master and an ancient cdrom unit as sec slave. Now I put the new hdd as primary master and newer cdrom as primary slave, and the old hdd as the secondary master and I threw the old cdrom out the window (the cable wasn't long enough... )

Everything looks fine, jumpers seem to be set correct, bios is very happy and all units seem to work properly (haven't actually had time to install the new hdd, but I don't think that will be a problem).

But... The floppy drive is now not working. It can't be seen at all. It's got power, and if I put a floppy in, I can hear it spin. I had to take out the floppy cable to the mobo while I messed around with all the cables, but after checking about 10 times, I'm sure it is put in correct. I'm guessing this could be due to anything, ranging from a broken lead in a cable to a packed in floppy drive. It is ancient, I nicked it from my mom's ol' pentium 166 when I built this baby, so the floppy drive is probably at least 5 years old. I can live without it though, the only thing I want it for is Partition Magic and Symantec Ghost. I'll use Acronis instead, and I think there is a way to tell PM what you want it to do while in windows (that means the hdd has to be installed first though...) but I can live with that. I think. I have tried to take everything out and restore the computer to the old setting, floppydrive still can't be seen.

Other problem. I actually don't know if this really IS a problem, or how serious!

Ever since I put all the hardware in place I get a message while booting. The following line appears after the hardware has been detected on the boot screen:

Secondary ide channel no 80 conductor cable installed.

I have tried to switch everything around, and put the new hdd on sec channel and old on primary. Same error message, so it doesn't look as if it's related to the devices. And the old hdd (the one I'm on now) seems very happy when on that sec channel, everything works. But an online friend had me check the device manager and on the primary ide channel I have Ultra DMA mode 5 as transfer mode and on secondary ide channel I only have mode 2. He told me this was probably because of this boot error, and that this will cause the computer to work slower.

Does anyone know if that is the case? I thought I'd have my games installed on the sec master (old hdd) in the future, so I have them installed on a separate drive. And it would be sad if that doesn't work well... How big a problem would this be? Is there anything I can do about it?

I have to confess... I know my way around in windows fairly well, and I'm not crap with software, but when it comes to hardware I know very little. So I'm afraid answers will have to be fairly easy to understand. Sorry about that!

System specs (what I know, this is partially built with "spare parts"):

*MSI K7T-TURBO mobo for Socket A VIAKT133A ATA/100
*Athlon 1133MHz
*Seagate Barracuda 7200.7, 200 gb as primary master (still not installed)
*40 gb ibm bought in 2002 I think as sec master (the one currently in use) installed with win XPpro SP2
*CDRW + dvd player samsung bought in 2003 as primary slave
*Floppydrive of ancient unknown date...
*Nvidia GeForce2

I know, I know, it's old, but it will have to last another year...

 

No one?

Now that I find worrying!

 

I'll assume that you have tried a replacement cable by now. If you haven't, it might be a good idea. It's not hard to make one conductor come adrift when you're messing with cables inside the case.

Also check the cable connections. If they're not shrouded, it's very easy to attach the connector offset by one row on one side or end. A dental mirror can be very handy here.

Does the floppy drive light come on and stay on when you start up the system? If so, you may have the cable connected backwards at one end. Make sure that the marked edge of the cable goes to Pin 1 at both the motherboard and the drive. If you can't tell, flip the cable at the drive end and see if that makes it work.

How do I know these things? Easy. I've made all of these mistakes. Several times. In spite of checking carefully. So assume nothing; check everything.

Does the floppy drive cable have connectors for two drives? If you only have the A: drive, you should be using the end connector -- the one beyond the twist in six conductors in the cable. If there is no twist, your BIOS may want to see the drive as B:. I ran into that problem with a round floppy cable that provided for only one drive. Fortunately, I was able to re-jumper the drive itself -- but I have an old twin-floppy drive in a half-height 5 1/4" case.

Have you got an UltraDMA (80-conductor) cables on both IDE channels? If you have, I'd suspect a defect in the cable on the secondary channel. If you're using a 40-conductor cable on the secondary channel, the system will probably work, but maybe not at full potential for the drives on that channel -- and your BIOS seems to be smart enough to be able to tell you so.

The 80-conductor cables are not expensive, and they are more reliable from a signal-transmission point of view. But they're not strictly necessary for ATA-33 and slower devices. Faster devices will run at ATA-33 on a 40-conductor cable, even though they may be capable of ATA-66 or better. Put your optical drives on the 40-conductor cable if you want to use it -- CD drives don't use the added throughput capability provided by the ATA-100 standard and above. I don't know about DVD drives.

In general, it's better to put hard drives and optical drives on separate IDE channels. Two devices on the same channel will operate at the speed of the slower device, and optical drives are usually slower than hard drives. The DMA Mode 2 indication you were seeing on your secondary channel may have been all that the slower drive on that channel was capable of.

 

Thank you for the reply!

Floppy problem solved. I can't believe it is possible to put the floppy cable in the wrong way! They should be fool proof for fools like me...

It is one single cable with 2 stems running out from the same slot/connector on the mobo, one for each channel. I assume they are both the same...

With optical drives, do you mean cdrom drives? I assume you do... Sorry for that probably not so clever question... I thought the whole idea with having 2 channels, one for each hdd was to get easier transfer of data through the cable. Someone told me I should never put 2 hdds on the same channel, because that would slow down the transfer something increadible. Do you suggest I instead put the 2 hdds as master and slave on the primary channel and the cdrom as master on second?

I have been told that the ideal is to have a hdd (as master) and cdrom (as slave) on each channel. And in a way that sounded sort of logical. Are you saying that is wrong?

The older hdd did use mode 5 when it was on primary channel, so it is capable of that speed.

Sorry for asking the same question again, I just didn't understand all you said. But I do understand enough to guess you are probably right.

I will look for a new cable tomorrow, to see if that changes anything.

What I just don't get is why I never got that message before! Was that because I just had 1 hdd?

Thanks again! I'm sure I will grasp all of this... one of these days!

 

Your response re the drive cable makes me wonder if you've attached the cable to the motherboard with the middle connector. It shouldn't be that way.

If it's a 40-conductor cable, it doesn't (usually) matter which end goes where -- but the motherboard/controller gets one end. A single drive gets the other end. If you have two hard drives on that channel, it doesn't (usually) matter which goes at the end and which gets the middle connector. There should be no lengths of cable flopping around without something attached to both ends -- that can create electrical reflections within the cable that can cause unreliable data transfers.

If it's an 80-conductor cable, the connectors should be marked as to which goes where. You may find that the connector on one end is blue -- that goes on the motherboard/controller. The other end connector may be black -- it must go to the master drive on that channel. The slave (if present) is attached to the grey connector in the middle of the cable.

Optical drives? Yes, by that I meant any drive that uses a laser and a lens system to read the data. That includes CD-ROM, CD-R/W, and DVD drives.

Which drives to pair on a given channel? Barring other considerations, pair drives of similar speed capability. The pair will operate at the speed of the slower drive. So, yes, pairing an old hard drive with a new one can drag down the performance of the new drive -- possibly quite significantly. The general rule I offered about pairing optical drives and hard drives is based on the assumption that optical drives are slower than hard drives. That assumption isn't always valid. Check the PIO and DMA modes that the drives use, and consider matching those capabilities on the same channel.

Given the hardware you've listed, I would put the two hard drives on the primary channel, and the two optical drives on the secondary channel. I wouldn't bother looking for an 80-conductor cable for the optical drives unless at least one of the manufacturers of the drives recommends it. Check the manuals for the optical drives.

However, if you intend frequent data transfers between two of the drives you have, consider putting them on different channels. Only one device on a channel can be active at any given moment in time, which means that the read operation must terminate before the write operation on the receiving drive can begin. If the drives are on different channels, one can be reading while the other is writing, with a significant reduction in transfer time.

If that means pairing a hard drive with an optical drive, make the hard drive the master, and the optical drive the slave.

You said that your MSI K7T-TURBO mobo "doesn't support 2 ide channels." The page I saw says that it provides "Dual bus Master IDE Ultra DMA33/66/100". The photo here shows the two IDE ports quite clearly -- one is blue, and one is grey, right next to the DIMM slots that hold the memory. Have you sorted that one out yet? Whether you have or not, I'd suggest that you go here and download a copy of the manual for your motherboard if you haven't already.

If you didn't have a device on the secondary channel that can operate at ATA-66 or better, that might explain why your system didn't complain about the lack of a 80-conductor cable. It may also have been the 40-conductor cable that forced the device on it to operate at Mode 2 instead of whatever it was capable of.

 

Damn!

I just so wish for once in my life I could be right about something!

You are absolutely right! I have to confess, it was so tight in there, that it looked like both IDE cables came from the same slot on the mobo... And I never had to take them out from the mobo. I feel like such an idiot right now...

I bought a new IDE cable and it solved all the problems. Both hdds work on mode 5, both cdroms on mode 2. This is now a very happy computer. For now I've kept the hdds on separate channels, as I have about 20 gb to transfer from the old to the new...

Thank you so much, Rob, for all your time and patience! I am so sorry it took so long for me to get things into my head, but if it's any consolation, your posts helped me so very much, without them I would still struggle. And I have learned so much!

I have now formatted my new drive and installed win XP. Finally back at doing something I'm good at for a change... I love the drive, it is so quiet compared to my old IBM that sounded like a moped... This one sounds like sizzling butter. Lol. I have the puter in the kitchen and I keep looking at the stove to see where the noise comes from!

Thanks again! Above all, for your patience!

 

It's good to know that you've found a solution that works. I'm glad to have helped, but don't forget that you did the work -- and I have no doubt whatsoever that you've learned a great deal in the process. You're quick on the uptake.

Keep refurbishing computers. Before you know it, you'll be helping others on MG!

All the best for the New Year.

PS: If you intend to mess with more computers, you might pick up a copy of O'Reilly Press's "PC Hardware in a Nutshell". Some of the information in my last post came from that book. There's a related website here.

 

Thanks!

I'll look into that book. So far I've only messed with computers that were ready made, or I've had someone helping me with the hardware. I have so many computers I'm in charge of when it comes to operation and software, it is time I start learning what is inside them too!

Ohh I'm just so very happy this computer is so happy now!

 

"Upgrading and Repairing PC's" by Scott Mueller (Que Books) is also good.

A tip for keeping the cost down. The current versions of books like those are expensive, but they are updated frequently. If you are dealing with machines that are more than a year old, an earlier edition may have all the information you need, and will be a lot less expensive.

"PC Hardware in a Nutshell" is now in its third edition. The second edition came out in 2002, and would be all you need for a machine that went into service by then. You can probably get the 2nd edition for less than half the cost of the current edition.

"Upgrading and Repairing PC's" is now in its 16th edition. The 12th edition was published in 2000. The supporting website is at <http://www.quepublishing.com/promotion/1626>.

If you're buying on-line, make sure you get the edition you want.

 

Cool!

My next really big project in this area will probably be next fall/early winter when I've decided it is time to upgrade computerwise. Most of the stuff I have is so outdated though, I need to start from scratch I think... But I think that would be more fun to build than to buy a complete new computer, I would learn more, and I would also get exactly the items I want in it! Water cooling, USB ports on the front of the case AND on the back... (maybe that is standard these days though... lol ) and stuff like that!

I might have to take a 1 month vacation to do it though...

 

Re: Upgrading PC's (was:Sec. IDE channel error and no floppy...)

Seems we've departed from the original topic. Oh well, I think it was done with anyway.

You're probably right -- beyond a certain age, upgrading a machine often isn't cost-effective. But you can learn a great deal from the effort, and it is fun and satisfying. I've upgraded or refurbished PC's for several members of my family -- and for some friends too.

They buy the parts and get a more powerful computer than what they had; I get the fun of doing the rebuild.

A tip, for those who do any significant amount of work on other people's computers: keep an eye on the swap meets, and lay in an extra monitor, keyboard, and mouse or two. They don't have to be good ones -- you're not going to use them all that much.

Then, when you bring in a friend's computer for some work, you only need to transport the case. It makes life a lot simpler.

 

Yeah, all problems were solved! I spent yesterday installing everything, and fixing settings and setting up all the partitions I wanted on each hdd. Today I'm going to make an image backup of this baby, that will save me a lot of time when I've screwed it up too much!

This machine was upgraded once already... Not much left of the old one anymore, thank heaven... But I don't think I would want to keep anything but the hdd and the newer cdrom unit, so definetely starting over for me...

Yeah, I agree on the advice about monitor and stuff! I have a monitor handy for friends in need, just for that purpose, makes things so much easier!