I ordered a dvd burner for my Dell XPS Gen 3 from newegg. I opened the new Lite-On SHM-165H6S retail version dvd burner and began to install it.
I originally had 2 drives installed a Samsung Cd burner, and a Teac Dvd burner, the samsung in the top bay and the teac in the bottom.
I unplugged the Power and IDE cables from the Samsung and removed the drive. I then put in the Lite-On and plugged in the cables. I did NOT set and jumpers.
The way that my optical drive IDE cable is set up is that there is one cable with 2 IDE ports that runs up the front of my case connecting to both optical drives.
I then booted my PC. BOTH of my drives would opne and close. The first thing I saw was a black screen with white lettering telling me that one of my PATA drives was not recognized. I went to the BIOS and saw that of my 2 PATA drives only #2 was recognized and correctly labeled, under #1 it gave an error.
After the Windows Loading Screen finished the screen stayed blank for 2 or 3 minutes. I then was greeted by an error telling me that I had no Virtual Memory and that Windows was generally unhappy about this turn of events. In my computer neither of my drives were recognized at first but after a couple of refreshes, my Lite on showed up. I tried putting a blank CD in but no response. I tried loading Sonic Record Now a cd/dvd burning app, but it said that no recordable drives were found. I went to cntrl panel and then system and then i checked the recordable memory which said 256mb (too little?) I was then greated by yet another error saying that I had no paging file and that Windows was quite bewildered by this.
I went to the Liteon website and downloaded the firmware, but once i tried to install it, an error message came up telling me that it was the incorrect drive.
The above was a summary of events from a total of 2 seperate boots, the preWindows error occured both times, but the first time I could not load any programs, I would click on the icons and they would show up in the task manager, but that is all.
Understandably frustrated, I turned off my PC and unplugged and removed the Lite-On and reinstalled the Samsung CD burner. Since then (15min) all has been well thanks to my heartfelt prayers to the computer god. Just to be safe, I used System restor to back my pc up to yesterday.
Should I RMA the drive or send it back? Did I do something wrong that I could easily fix and get that drive to work?
Intel 925x mobo,
P4 3.2ghz prescott
160gb sata
any other specs needed let me know...
I WOULD GREATLY APPRECIATE IT IF I GOT A RESPONSE WITHIN THE NEXT DAY SO I CAN WORK OUT WHAT TO DO.
When you use one cable with two drives you have to make one primary and the other seconday. This may not be the case with sata hdd's but still is for pata drives.
When you use one cable with two drives you have to make one primary and the other seconday. This may not be the case with sata hdd's but still is for pata drives.
This is the case. SATA controllers only use a Master configuration, instead of Master/Slave like PATA, because you can only attach one SATA device per SATA port.
The lite-on has an area on the back with 6 pins in 3 columns of 2.
Above the second column it says Slave and above the 3rd, master. The little plastic piece which i think i can assume is the jumper is set to slave.
On my samsung (which works) it isnt labeled but the jumper is set to the first column.
I could always replace the other dvd burner in my system in the second bay. That drive is set to CSEL (i dunno but thats what it says.) That is also the first column of pins, exactly like the samsung.
Even if i did set the jumpers wrong, would that explain all of the problems that I experienced?
On my samsung (which works) it isnt labeled but the jumper is set to the first column.
I could always replace the other dvd burner in my system in the second bay. That drive is set to CSEL (i dunno but thats what it says.) That is also the first column of pins, exactly like the samsung.
The jumper configurations on the 2 drives may not be exactly the same.... for instance, the master setting on the samsung may be pins 1 and 2, whereas on the liteon it may be pins 3 and 4. You MUST make sure you know what the jumper pinouts are on the drives in order to set them correctly. No assumptions allowed here.
And for the record, CSEL refers to the Cable Select setting. This means whichever port on the IDE cable the drive is plugged into, is what that drive becomes in the Master/Slave config.
Edit: Yes, if the jumpers are not configured properly (for instance, you have both hard-wired as Master) it could cause these kinds of problems. If you have both set to the same setting (lets use my above example for this), the BIOS would detect neither drive. The same goes if both are hard wired as the Slave, or if one is hard wired Master but plugged into the slave port, and the other is hardwired as the Master. The final incorrect configuration is where if the one plugged into the master port is hard wired as the Slave, and the one that's plugged into the Slave port on the cable is set to cable select.
Sorry if that was confusing, but the bottom line is that if both drives are seen by the BIOS as either the master or slave, instead of one as the master and one as the slave, both the BIOS, and Windows will not be able to recognize either drive.
Thanks buddy, but it doesnt help me at all in resolving my problem. If I understand you correctly the issue is in not knowing what my samsung drive is set to, and the ability to replicate that on the lite-on.
I would REALLY appreciate some instructions on how to go about fixing this issue.
Okay another update.... I used a needle to remove the jumper and I moved it to cable select. This is probably the same setting used by the Samsung. Here goes nothing.
My money is on everything working now, any takers? I've never had a problem just setting everything to cable select. If cable select doesn't work for you, then chances are you should set the jumper to master, since this drive is in the top position. In my experience the PATA cable has the master on the furthest connector and the slave connector in the middle. This should be labeled on the cable, but I think it's pretty standard.
Biuldcat4... I think most of these guys are on the wrong track..Try going into control panel and system,advanced.. look for the virtual memory settings and make sure its not set to 0..If it is,check the circle that says let windows set it..Then click set and ok..Or the drive isn't plugged in all the way or its defective..jumpers aren't going to give you an error like that..let me know if it worked..
Yea it works fine now.... just fine....
Burning a Test CD now. Then gonna read from a DVD+R.. holy crap its LOUD! It sounds like a freaking airliner taking off. Good thing I use headphones.
To irocem: If you read what I wrote inthe beginning you would have seen thats the first thing I did when I got the message about no paging file. And yes, seemingly so, jumper placement CAN cause these kinds of problems. Now I know what to do to incapacitate a PC.
If I have any more problems I will write in.
On another topic we made it to the front page of TH.com and held it for a couple hours
kudos....
