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hard disk fails while instalng cd burnr

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by tturner 1 view

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A couple days ago I installed a new CD burner in my PC. The PC is about 3 years old, I use Windows 98. After intalling the new hardware, I went to boot it up I got a hard disk failure, and got a message: "Drive C does not contain valid FAT or FAT32 partition." I ran Scandisk and no problems were found. I tried running fdisk and got the message "no fixed disks present." The hard disk is connected to the #1 IDE slot by itself, and the CD ROM drives to the #2 IDE slot, with the new CD burneras the master. I don't know if this is related, but the power light on the origional CD ROM drive doesn't come on, so now I don't have a functioning CD ROM drive. I also discovered when I went to move the jumper on the origional CD ROM drive from the master to the slave postion, it was already in the slave postion from the factory. Is that normal? It had been working fine. Thanks.

10 replies

by thechas

My first though here is that your IDE cables are swapped.

That is, that the CD-ROM drives are actually connected to IDE 0/1 and the Hard drive is connected to IDE 1/2

You can verify this by entering setup when the PC is running the memory testat startup.

Your Hard drive should be the first drive, followed by a blank.
Then, your CD-RW drive and CD-ROM drive.

Another possability, is that the Hard drive was set to a mode other than the auto-detect default, and it was changed when your PC detected the new CD-RW drive.

Chas

by thechas

I was in a hurry to get to a meeting.
It would not hurt to double-check that ALL cables are plugged in correctly, and properly seated.

Also, if your PC has less than a 250 Watt power supply, you are apt to have problems when you start burning CDs.

Chas

by rcom

Seems you've just got something connected wrong.

One thing to think about is the message about the invalid fat table. This may be because you have a boot manager on the hard drive. But if you could see the drive and run scandisk after booting from a floppy the drive should have appeared in fdisk. Did you type "scandisk c:" or just "scandisk" which would have scanned the floppy?

There's no problem with your original CD' jumper being in the slave position. To test if the CD is working. Whenthe drawer opens you've got power. Put in an audio CD and plug headphones or you PC speakers in. Don't forget to adjust the volume wheel on the front of the CD.

The best thing to do here is disconnect all and start over. Often in the excitementof getting new hardware and the rush to get it installed, the obvious can easily be overlooked.

First make sure that you know if your motherboard has the IDE connectors assigned as 0 & 1 or if it's 1 & 2. A possible problem is, if you saw IDE1 and connected the hard drive there one wouldn't even look at the other connector assuming everything was correct. Chas mentioned this.

First just connect the hard drive and try and get that working again. No need to boot all the way to windows, justmake sure it works. Since the hard drive was working before there's no need to run scandisk. Fdisk can be used to view the partition.

You may need to take the CD drives out to make sure everything is correct. Check the jumpers again. Make sure they're properly seated and on both pins.

Next make sure the stripe on the ribbon cables are positioned to pin one.

by rcom

Take the hard drive out so you can see the jumper settings listed on the label. Some hard drives have different setings if it's a single or a master with slave attached.

Western Digital uses and others use these jumper settings;

Master/Single,
Master With Slave,
Slave
CS(Cable Select)

by tturner

Okay, good news. I unplugged everything from both CD drives and she booted up just fine. With either or both CD drives reconnected I got the same hard disk failure. With everything reconnected, I check the setup. In 'Standard CMOS Setup', under Hard Disks, my hard drive was was there as Primary Master, but Secondary Master and Slave were 'none'. What do I do next?

by it_instructor

I have seen several things cause this type of problem(s);

Verify BIOS/CMOS settings for devices
Power supply does not provide enough watts
Power supply is failing (test volt levels)
IDE cable is loose or bad (try swapping cables)
Hardware notcompatible with each other (rare)
Defective burner (even if it is new, done that)
Hard drive failed (Coincidental? very rare)
-----------
Disconnect the burner & CD-ROM drive, reseat the IDE1 (pin1=red wire) cable for the hard drive (check for bent pins)

then

check your BIOS/CMOS setup for correct hard drive and boot sequence settings

then

Test the power supply for correct voltages/watts

then

get the hard drive working again (swap the IDE cables if you have to, remember Pin1=the red wire)

then

Connect the burner to IDE2/Master without the CD-ROM drive and verify that it works (swap the IDE cables if you have to, remember Pin1=the red wire), replace IDE cable if bad one is found

then

Connect the CD-ROM drive to IDE2/Slave only if you realy need to have it installed

by tturner

I upgraded the power supply, put in a new IDE cable, left out the old CD drive and eventually got it working. One of the power connecters might have added to the problem. Thanks to all who helped.

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