another 1 for the techies

[suzanne]

My nephews PC was not good enough to play a game (WOW I think) so my sister bought a second hand better one on ebay from a guy who lived locally. He assured her that he would be able to play his game on this PC.
When she picked it up she asked him if he could please take out a new DVD writer that was installed in his old PC and put it in the new tower which he was happy to do and told her just to run the disc she was given and it would work fine.
When she got it home and tried to install it she found that not only was the new DVD writer not working but the old one isnt working either so she cant install the disc which means she is also unable to run the sky disc to get him on the internet.
Unfortunatly the guy was moving house that week and she has deleted his email address so cant get in touch with him.
Is it because there are 2 CD readers that it is not working? I have had a look inside and cant see anything loose so im not sure what to do. I have tried googling it but had no luck so far.
Any suggestions please?

[Ecosse]

You need someone that knows what there doing.

When you install 2 CD / DVD  or hard disks on the same cable, one needs to be told it's the master and the other is the slave.

Please don't inform the PC brigade about these terms, but honestly - that's what's wrong.

Someone with some knowledge of PC internals will correct it pretty quickly (one jumper change)

Dougie.

[suzanne]

That makes it sound easier than I thought...im googling.

Thanks Ecosse

[Ecosse]

That makes it sound easier than I thought...im googling.

Thanks Ecosse

The device at the end of the cable should be the slave.

If you unplug from the power cable end of the device at the end, you'll see a diagram and four (normally) little jumpers,

It'll tell you which way to to place the jumpers depending which mode you wish to make the device act as.

One must be the master and one must be the slave. convention is to make the one at the end of the cable the slave.

Dougie.

[suzanne]

From what I can find its about switching the position of the cables..i will look into it deeper over the weekend.

So what do I do? Do I make the old driver the master so I can install the disc as presumably the new one wont work until the disc is installed or by making the new driver the master will I get a "new hardware has been found" pop up?

[Ecosse]

From what I can find its about switching the position of the cables..i will look into it deeper over the weekend.

So what do I do? Do I make the old driver the master so I can install the disc as presumably the new one wont work until the disc is installed or by making the new driver the master will I get a "new hardware has been found" pop up?

I've had to many beers LOL.

Have a look here :-

http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/installing_cd_recorder.htm

It's got the correct diagrams etc, if you've went as far as checking all the cables you'll do this in 5 mins.

Dougie.

[Bongo]

You shouldn't need to install a disc to make the new drive work either!

[Ecosse]

She wont, one jumper needs changed on the newest device. needs set to slave.

Job done.

[suzanne]

From what I can find its about switching the position of the cables..i will look into it deeper over the weekend.

So what do I do? Do I make the old driver the master so I can install the disc as presumably the new one wont work until the disc is installed or by making the new driver the master will I get a "new hardware has been found" pop up?

I've had to many beers LOL.

Have a look here :-

http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgrading/installing_cd_recorder.htm

It's got the correct diagrams etc, if you've went as far as checking all the cables you'll do this in 5 mins.

Dougie.

WOOHOOO PERFECT!!!

That is exactly what I was trying to find...TYTYTYTY

I will bump it probably when I get it wrong but thanks for the help xxx

[RichEO]

You shouldn't need to install a disc to make the new drive work either!

I think they meant WOW install disc.

[RichEO]

I wouldn't bother changin any jumpers (at least not as 1st).

Just unplug the old driver and leave in the new DVD-RW by itself. If you boot up and it doesn't work, there is something other than incompatibility of jumpers afoot.

If it works, I'd then set both drives to CS (cable select) doesn't matter which is mater or slave then, they will just work, PC will sort it out.

If unplugging one drive doesn't make the other work: I check IDE cable connection is secure, check power connector is in, change IDE port (in no hard drives connected to other port - if there are I would say don't mess with it), change IDE cable, swap drives over, check BIOS settings.

Basically, unplug the old drive and get back to me with what works.