I recently purchased a Gigabyte GA-8IK1100 motherboard and a NEC 2510 DVD RW. Due to my computing needs, I have to split my 2 hard drives across the 2 IDE channels, which forces me to also split my 2 optical drives (the other drive is a TDK VeloCD 48x16x48) across both IDE channels. Unfortunately, no matter which optical drive I install as primary slave, the motherboard/bios refuses to recognize anything connected. I have contacted Gigagbyte technical support, but after several exchanges, their position is the motherboard does not have a problem with recognizing optical drives installed as primary slave. This is the a replacement GA-8IK1100 as I returned the first board with the same problem.

To answer the obvious questions, I have swapped out IDE cables, tried jumpering as slave and as cable select, and tried both drives as primary slave. The motherboard/bios just refuses to recognize either optical drive in this position. One last note, the 2 hard drives are both Maxtor 6Y120P0 drives which are ATA/133. Could having sucah a drive as master on the primary IDE channel confuse the IDE controller and cause it to fail to recognize the optical drive - just a long shot?

Anybody have any thoughts?

Strange and difficult issue, i imagine you have tried to update BIOS? Why you don't connect the two HDD together and the two ODD drives also together?

(in reply to Divergent Species)

[Deleted by Admins]

(in reply to Divergent Species)

Emperor, per Gigabyte technical support, I have the most current BIOS. Minos, the cables are 80 pin. Emperor & Minos, I experiment a lot with this system so I frequently image my system partition to a backup to the hard drive on the secondary IDE channel before making changes. By having them split, it significantly reduces the backup/restore time required for the images.

Therefore, I need to split the hard drives across IDE channels and as a result split the optical drives across IDE channels. From my research, there should not be any inherent restrictions on having an optical drive as primary slave - even the Gigabyte Technical support people agree.

I realize that I have two workaround solutions: (1) a PCI IDE Controller card or (2) an external 5.25 inch USB 2 drive enclosure. Most likely I will go with the USB 2 drive enclosure, but I hate spend extra $ for a workaround after spending $$ for this new motherboard. I will say NewEgg customer service, who replaced the first board have offered to refund my money plus $10 to cover return shipping so I have to give them high marks. However, I have spent so much time swapping components and reinstalling my operating system and software, I will probably stick with the board and do the workaround if I cannot find a solution.

Thanks for your thoughts.

(in reply to Divergent Species)

Let us know if you find any solution at your problem

(in reply to Divergent Species)

And the Secondary consists of an optical drive slaved to an identical ATA/133 HD, and works? - that would kind of rule out an optical drive versus ATA/133 conflict?

I've seen a drive that didn't like to be secodary slave, but it seems tou have tried enough combinations that the only common factor is the primary slave.

Presumably it does work if you set the two HDs as master/slave there?


Am I rigt that the same pairing which would work on the secondary, does not work on the primary?

The only thing that I can think of, is timing - is there an option to add a few seconds boot delay?

(in reply to emperor)

Matthew, over the weekend I tried a spare 80GB ATA/100 drive as Primary slave and the system would not recognize it either. Given I have now tried both optical drives and a hard drive as Primary Slave, the only conclusion is that having the Maxtor ATA/133 as Primary Master somehow confuses the IDE controller (rated at ATA/100) such that it will not see a Primary Slave. Since I like the transfer rate performance I am getting out of the Maxtor, I purchased an external USB 2 case for the DVD drive and resolved the problem that way. That leads to another question, which I will post in a different forum.

(in reply to Matthew)

I have read that a few have said 2510 does not like being placed as a slave. so that may be an issue aswell. Are the optical drives recognized at all in the bios in either ide channel 1 or 2? try different drive setup config to see if the channels and/or opti drives are working properly. Try to use the mast or slave jumpers on and drives not just cable select.

(in reply to Divergent Species)