From: "Rick Glazier" :Sent: Monday, August 14, 2000 7:47 AM
Subject: [PCBUILD] CD drive not recognized - me too, sometimes...


> ----- Original Message (was from) -----
> > "Peter Darrach" Subject: Re: [PCBUILD] CD drive not recognized
> Snip,snip, snip............
> > > > > Anyway, I'm lost! Can anyone lead me out of the wilderness? How
can I
> > > > > get the CD recognized?
>
> I have been having a problem "similar" to the original question.
> Mary Wolden gave a great "history" of ide and eide interfaces
> and sound card support for CD-ROM drives, and the ATAPI
> standard, etc...
> snip -- (The following is about one of the newer standards, the one I
use.)
> M.W. > snip>
> While there is no need to detect the _parameters_ of a CD-ROM drive in the
BIOS,
> I have "one" CD-ROM drive that will not work unless it initializes itself
properly
> and the BIOS detects that it is there. (Which came first, the chicken or
the egg?)
> When I say "detect" I mean the hard drives and CD-ROMS list themselves
> by model number and location (pri-master, pri-slave, sec-master,
sec-slave)
> on a BIOS boot screen. (This is on a motherboard built-in controller with
support
> for four "(E)IDE" devices)
>
> I have an Award BIOS dated 5/98. I run Win95B "fully patched".
> I set the two hard drives on the first channel to auto. I can set the
second "channel"
> to auto for both CD-ROM drives or to none, and I can even "turn off" the
second IDE
> channel  (to "disabled").
> None of these settings seem to affect the BIOS detecting the model of the
CD-ROM
> drives normally (and it usually it does) and the CD-ROM drives should (and
do
> "mostly") appear regardless of these settings, EXCEPT for the CD-ROM that
> "sometimes" fails to either initialize or ID correctly.
> (Which "IS" first, the chicken or the egg?)
> I am bringing all this up because it sounds like a similar situation that
the other
> gentleman was trying to describe and one that I have been wanting to ask
about
> for a long time.
> Now the question.
> For a BIOS that "normally" "IDs" or detects a CD-ROM, how "bad" is it
> when it does not about 25% of the time, (only on "cold" boots)?
> This drive that "mostly" appears (and sometimes does not) is an Acer
4x2x32
> CDRW and is under warranty.
> Is this a problem with the BIOS booting, or the drive initializing, or the
BIOS detecting
> the model/drive?
> I have "quick power on self test" turned off in the BIOS (to do the "long"
test.)
> Thanks for reading this.  Any suggestions?         Rick Glazier
>

Rick,

Whether the CD-ROM needs to be initialized in the BIOS or not seems to be
dependant on the particular motherboard and BIOS.  Motherboard manufacturers
buy a BIOS and then will customize for the particular motherboard.  If you
have ever updated a BIOS then you will know that you must update with the
particular BIOS for the specific motherboard including the revision of the
motherboard.  With Peter's problem when he loaded the CD-Rom drivers by
floppy he was able to access the CD-ROM even though it was not initialized
in the BIOS.  He thought he would not be able to access the CD-ROM if it
didn't initialize in the BIOS.

I have 4 different boards from ABIT, a BH6 rev 1.1, a BH6 rev 1.0, a BE6,
and a BF6.  The two BH motherboards both initialize the CD-ROM in the BIOS,
the BE6 and the BF6 boards do not initialize the CD-ROM in the BIOS.  On the
BE6 nothing shows up for the EIDE channels at all because I only have an
Acer 40x CD-ROM and an Atapi Zip drive, the hard drives are all located on a
Promise Ultra 66 controller.   I also have an older Dell 300 Mhz Pentium II
which also initializes the CD-ROM drive in the BIOS.

As far as the drive not initializing, since you state that this only happens
on cold boot I would assume that the autodetect is timing out before the
drive is initialized.  This could be caused by a very large power drain at
boot up depending on the components in your system and the size of your
power supply.

Hope this helps,

Mary Wolden

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