CD optical drive issues

flyriceflyrice
edited July 2005 in Hardware
I'm fixing a client's computer and, after cleaning gobs amount of dust in his CPU and motherboard (btw HP pavilion systems are a pain to reconstruct and take apart since the PSU is in the way), I was going to run some virus scans, etc. Then I realized his CD-ROM isn't fully operational.

It works (as in it's getting power because the tray opens and closes), but the BIOS isn't even detecting it! I've narrowed it down to one of 3 things.

1) The IDE interface cable is bad
2) The motherboard's IDE connector is bad
3) The actual optical drive itself is bad

I'm just wanting to know some suggestions for fixing this. Obviously, the cheaper to fix the better.

Comments

  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2005
    try another cable first.

    Then swap in another used but known good cdrom.

    Its probably one of the first two. Probably number two.

    Tex
  • flyriceflyrice
    edited July 2005
    Yep, you're on the money. The IDE port on the mobo for is bad (although the IDE port for the HDD works fine). Swapped the cables, no change. Swapped CD drives, no change. Has to be mobo.

    The solution then is to slave the CD rom and have it all on one cable. However, the cables I have aren't long enough to stretch it out correctly because HP computers are designed really sloppy on the inside. The power supply blocks the CPU and there's a big bar that I can't remove (I have to open both sides of the case to actually work on the mobo).

    No wonder those Pavilions are so tiny. They're designed really bad.
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited July 2005
    No the solution isnt to have them on the same cable. The cdrom would slow the hard drive down to its speed. The solution would be to get a cheap ide add-in card for $20 and hang the hd or cdrom off it.

    Tex
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