CD/DVD drive problem

[scratched]

I recently upgraded my mobo to an MIS K8T Neo-V and processor to an AMD Sempron 2800+ (Not the greatest, I know but I'm on a budget and they were on sale). Everything is working more or less fine now, except the CD/DVD drives are not working.

I have 2 CD-ROM drives on my computer, both connected on the same IDE cable. As far as I know the jumpers are set up correctly since they worked fine before I upgraded my hardware. I doubt it is a driver problem since I have tried booting from a Knoppix CD, Ubuntu Live, a Windows 98 CD, and a Windows XP Home CD and none of them worked (the linux CDs booted part of the way, but never booted all the way to the OS, they always freeze before they get to the desktop. I have configured my BIOS to boot from CD in case anyone was wondering. I have also uninstalled and reinstalled the CD drivers several times with no success. The drives are recognized in the BIOS and in windows, they just don’t actually do anything.

The master CD-Rom drive will not read CDs at all. Today the DVD drive began working all of a sudden. I don’t know what caused this because my family uses this computer more than I do and they might have done something to it. It does not work entirely however. I still can’t boot from the drive and when an executable is run from the drive it fails to run and gives me an error.

Seeing as how this is a new mobo I’m thinking that the mobo may be the problem. I’m hoping someone may be able to tell me what the problem is. If this is a mobo problem, I’d like to return it right away for a different one.

[Agent]

Have you tried it with just one plugged in ?
Tried a different IDE lead ?
Are the IDE leads rounded ? - they have been known to cause problems.
Double check the jumpers, especially if one is set to cable select - different boards have different success rates with this.
Have you tried the other IDE port on the motherboard ?
A long shot – but do you have a suitable PSU for your system, ie. Its not a Q-tec ?

[scratched]

I've tried with just one plugged in and that didn't work. I could try a different IDE cable. I know I have at least one or 2 lyring around somehere...

I'm using flat cables not rounded ones.

I'm going to try checking the jumpers the next time I have access to the computer. It's not my computer, it is my family's. I only use it when I'm "servicing" it so I don't get on there very often to fix problems that aren't 'serious'. Does anyone know where I can find a diagram of how to set up jumpers or are jumpers different for each drive, because I don't know how easy it will be to find the manual for the drives. The drives are about 5 years old (maybe older) so a lot of documentation has been scattered...

The next time I have access to my computer I'm also going to try the other IDE slot, but if that fixes it, would that mean the other slot is faulty, because if it is then I'm going to return the mobo.

I just bought a new PSU, a Thermaltake 430W one. I don't know if Thermaltake is a good brand or not (I don't know hardware brands) but it had mostly good reviews on newegg.

[scratched]

I checked the jumpers, the cables, and the slot on the mobo and they're all fine. At this point I suspect that the drives may have gotten fried somehow.

Is there any chance that the problem could be the mobo? possibly not handling CD drives correctly?

[DaftpuNk]

Slap them in another system. Set only one of them as auto detect in BIOS to see if it boots any better. Other than this, give up?

[scratched]

I tried it in another computer, but the computer I tried it in is about 7 years old and has some PSU problems (its only 250W and pretty old) so I can't be too sure about it.

I'm borrowing a drive off of a friend of mine today to check what the problem is.