CompAQ only sees on drive per channel

[jbar1]

Installed XP on compaq 5000 series. Now will only see one drive per channel. Hate Compaq bios. tried updating bios from compaq but to no avail and could find no via chipset updates on the site. This was a fresh install on formated drive.Xp runs fine bu need to be able to have 4 drives in it. any help would be welcomed
Thanks

[NooNoo]

The couple of recent compaqs I have worked on have been neutered so that they only allow one drive per ide chain.... have you thought about a pci ide controller?

[confus-ed]

Right cables ? .... presssumably the 'errant' machine didn't come with 4 devices ? ... Any ata 66 + (so ata 100 etc) needs 80 sense cables to work correctly ... pressumably this unit came with old style 40 sense ide cables ? (make sure also that both channels are actually enabled in bios - the default is often primary only)

BTW if you want VIA chipset patches go to the 'horses mouth' Via Arena

[jbar1]

When it came in it was running ME, and when it wasnt frozen it showed 4 drives, cables are fine and drives work, Tried in other machine. Have tried cable select and master /slave setup, can get to see one drive on A channel and one on B. After restart second drives disappears.Both channels active in bios. bus mastering shows no dual fifo. Is the only solution to use IDE controler card?This is a 1.1 gig AMD, 512 mb ram. Clean install of XP home, ATI rage Pro 128. thanks

[confus-ed]

So it did work under ME (besides me being rubbish!?) - All 4 drives found ? then you tried to flash ? & it failed ?... or you never found the right one ?

If it all once worked then unless for some reason your ide controllers died coincidentally then there shouldn't be a need for an extra contoller card (though there might be advantages) ... what do you want to hook up to it ? you don't appear to say ...

[jbar1]

It has one HD 50 Gb a dvd/cd player and a burner. Customer would also lit to have a small drive for downloads only. When it came in had corrupted OS and even after using Compaq restore procedyre it had same porb. Mouse and keyboard froze every15 or 20 secs continously. Customer spent 6 hrs on phone with Compaq. They said everything was OK , yeah right. Finaly formated sys ntfsand installed XP home. channel A only has HD on it and is stable, B channel has dvd and burne, never sees the burner. You have to enter bios and have it find DVD on each boot. dvd will disappear on restart. I flashed the bios with what compaQ had on their site. no help
It operates great cept for the drive prob. I dont see any dual FIFO which leads me to believe buss mastering is not right. Thats all I can tell you I think

[confus-ed]

Mmmmm ? .... maybe now that you've flashed the bios you have 'neutered' bios as Noo describes ... ? Or is the psu not up to it ?(which is the reason for neutering the bios to add stability) ... from memory those came with just one hd & a burner ... (I think I might try with another non comcrap psu)

As far as busmastering goes try pio for it all (in bios) just to see if windoze can find them all corrrectly, their actual operation(in dma mode or pio) ought to be independant but maybe bios is struggling to autosense the dvd ?

[NooNoo]

Have you changed out the ide cables? Is the burner on 80 or 40 sense?

[confus-ed]

Originally posted by NooNoo
Have you changed out the ide cables? Is the burner on 80 or 40 sense?

Does this quote not cover it ?

When it came in it was running ME, and when it wasnt frozen it showed 4 drives, cables are fine and drives work, Tried in other machine

But he 'messed' with his bios since then !! (so he might require 80 sense now for a second device to be 'seen') however I think we can say he has working 40 sense cables at least, the original machine is 99 or thereabouts so if original the cables are 40 sense ... it only makes a difference with dma on -which was why I suggested using pio to 'see' ....