[Overmyhead16]

Have Dell Dimension 4300 I just bought. It sometimes does not auto recognize the DVD drive, a NEC ND-1100A. If I hit the F1 key and loads Windows XP Home Edition everything is fine.

When it is recognized it is seen as a CD R/W drive in setup. This is R/W DVD.

Replaced the backup battery with a new one and took out plug from back of DVD drive and reconnected it. No change.

What gives? Is this something to worry about?


Thanks in advance.

 

[dai]

are you using an 80 wire ide cable
black,grey,blue plugs
the drive jumpered as
master on the end black plug
slave on the grey middle plug

 

[Overmyhead16]

Opened case and see a 80 wire cable (grey with red stripe on one side) with black plugs. Jumpered on Csel (left most jumper of the three). This cable is only for the DVD R/W drive. Floppy and Hard drive each have their own. This is a IDE device.

Noticed bare wire on cable. Taped it up temporarily with electrical tape. Seems be not broken. On edge of cable that is not red.

Still having intermittent problem with auto recognize.

 

[dai]

it's an old 40 wire cable if it does not have the blue,grey,black plugs
you need an 80 wire for dvd drives and set it as master on the the end black plug

 

[Overmyhead16]

No, it is an 80 wire cable. I double checked and set it as the master.

Boots up cold fine. On restart it still does not recognize the DVD drive.

Noticed some lights on back of the computer. The A and D are yellow while the B & C are green when it says it does not see the drive.

Will get a new cable, but could it have to something with the BIOS? Does it need to be upgraded? When it does recognizes the drive it sees it as a CD not DVD.

Played a DVD movie and it works fine.

 

[dai]

they usually ee them as cd until you put a dvd disk in
if it's seeing the disks and running ok i don't know why it's not recognizeing the drive

 

[Overmyhead16]

Got some DVD+R discs and burned one. No problems. Verified it and data was fine.

Noticed that it seems to be happening only on a restart.

Tried something from the Dell forum. Set the Scroll lock, caps lock and num lock on while in setup and hit alt-F. Causes the system to detect the IDE devices. No help. Sometimes it sees them and sometimes not.

Help!