bill_n_opus

My secondary IDE Bus Controller has a Plex 8/4/32 hooked up as Master.

However, the Plex is not working at all.

Somehow the Plex is recognized during bootup but when you hit "System Properties/Device Manager" the Plex isn't recognized there. Primary IDE Bus Controller is recognized and is "working properly" Secondary IDE Bus Controller has a big yellow exclamation mark and says:


Device Status: This device is either not present, not working properly, or does not have all the drivers installed (code 10) Try upgrading the drivers for the device.

I've tried upgrading the drivers but it wouldn't let me. Said that the best drivers are already installed.

I went to Start/Settings/Control Panel/Add New Hardware and it found the Plex as:

"Secondary IDE Controller" not as the Plex. Hmmmnnnnn.

So, i'm confused. WTF is going on?

The plex is obviously recognized, it's telling me that it's installed but it's not functioning properly.

What are my best bets? Anyone have any suggestions? I've pulled the machine apart to make sure that everything is connected properly. Power is on and everything.

I really need some help and I appreciate any pointers or suggestions.

Thanks

AMD k6-3 400
Asus P5A mobo

Quantum HDD Primary Master
Toshiba cdrom Primary Slave
Plextor cdr/w Secondary Master

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LPMiller

try removing the CDROM drive and see if the plextor works as a slave on the primary. If it does, then hook up the cd as master on channel 2, and see what happens. It could be that the second channel controller is frying out, the drive is bad, or there is some conflict going on between drives. I've had devices not show in windows, but never with a !, so I'm worried you have some bad hardware somewhere. Switch around devices and see what happens.

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BADFlSH

Yeah would move stuff around like LPM said and make sure the drive is working. If it is I would try removing the secondary controller in the windows system control panel. Then when you restart it will ask for drivers this could fix the problem because even though it is installing the same driver it is possible that the old version is corrupt but the new version wich will come off the cd should work. I wouldn't hold to much hope in that working but it's worth a shot.

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bill_n_opus

Thanks guys. I'm going to try that.

Actually, last night under the advice of a friend I tried to remove the 2nd IDE Channel and it said that it was not possible to remove it by itself. Interesting. It said:

"This device is part of a multifunction device. You must remove the parent IDE controller first which will also remove everything else" - paraphrased.

The parent device is the ALi m5229 Bus Master IDE Controller.

Sooooo, I decided to remove the parent and figured that during the reboot it would reinstall it and hopefully the problem would go away.

But it didn't so that kinda sucked.

Thanks for the tips and i'm going to try the switching thing ... right about now. Wish me luck ...

May I also say that i've posted this on Anandtech Forums and still haven't gotten any informed answers at all. I come here after a long absence and I get some good advice lickety split. You guys rock.

I'm coming here more often for sure.

LPMiller

might be a good idea to see if ALI has updated drivers as well.

good luck!

bill_n_opus

Hi everyone.

I did some troubleshooting and came up with some very interesting conclusions:

It's not the Plextor that's messed up. It's something else and i'm not sure what it is ...

I did this:

(1) disabled the Plextor and moved the Toshiba CDROM from Primary Slave to Secondary Master. It worked and had no problems.

(2) Moved Plextor back to Secondary Master, left Toshiba disabled so I only had HDD on Primary Master and Plextor on Secondary Master.

Did not work. Still getting the same error message.

(3) Moved Plextor to Primary Slave, nothing on Secondary IDE Channel - it worked! Sheesh!


WTF?

The Secondary IDE Bus Channel seems to be working fine with the Toshiba but it doesn't like the Plextor as the Secondary Master!

Now, i've heard stories from other people with their own personal experiences about what kind of particular setup their system has forced them to do but I never thought that I would have to keep the HDD as Primary Master, Plextor as Primary Slave and the Toshiba CDROM as the Secondary Master. Weird.

Is there any problem with having this configuration? Having the HDD and the Plex on the same channel? I know that I may take a performance hit and may have to increase the buffer since the info is travelling up and down the same highway. But i'm assuming that it will work for now.

Does anyone have any other ideas why the Plex will not work on the Secondary IDE?

Funny thing is that just before I had this problem I had another problem where my video drivers seem to disappear. I was stuck on 640x480 and had a tough time trying to install more recent drivers. Finally after troubleshooting I was able to install the new Detonator 3 drivers and I thought everything was fine.

Even during this video driver problem I was able to burn some discs. Now, after it was fixed the next time I booted up this Plex-Secondary IDE problem came up. Coincidence?
Could have the video problem somehow have brought on a software problem with the Plex and 2nd IDE? Could I have a faulty IDE cable? I wonder if my video card driver disappearing also signaled some disappearance act with my MOBO drivers or BIOS as LPM suggested? I'm thinking something happened and reset everything to a default?

I'm babbling, sorry to go on for so long. Again, thanks in advance for anyone's opinion on what's going on here.

LPMiller

either you have some bizarre conflict going on, or you have a low level Windows corruption, which can be a pain. Considering your vid driver problem, I'd suspect the latter.

May be time to do a format of the c partition, and reinstall windows. With each new driver install, Windows can get just a little more goofy.

However, there really shouldn't be too much trouble with the config as it stands now, though yeah, you will get a performance hit on burns...its more important that the reader and writer are on different channels.

One thing you might try is to upgrade the firmware of the Plextor, you might have a rather old version of it - or it is corrupt. Also update those buss mastering drivers, and hell, a Bios or two.

But like I said, when in doubt, reformt it.

xjerryx

I am having this EXACT same problem with a Plexwriter 10/12/32 on w2k

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xjerryx

This is what the Microsoft Site says:

This Device Manager error indicates that Setup found an INF match for your device and most likely found your driver, but either your INF did not list all the necessary files to be copied, your driver failed in DriverEntry, or your driver failed in its AddDevice routine. Consult the event log and the Setup API log for entries from your driver or whichever driver was loaded for your device. You might also need to connect the kernel debugger to debug the failing driver.

Unfortunately, me being barely computer literate, this is Greek to me. Can somebody translate?

bill_n_opus

After being offline for awhile i'm back in business.

I changed living arrangements and I haven't had the computer up and running for a few days. I finally got it up and going 30 mins ago and guess what?

It's working again.

This is the scoop.

I have my old Viewsonic monitor over at where i'm staying now and left my Samsung back at the apartment. I moved the computer sans Samsung and reset it back up with the old Viewsonic and voila! Lo and behold, everything is back in order.

Everything is cool and seemingly working again.

Don't understand why ... i'm just glad that it works now. I'll probably reformat pretty soon anyways. This is too goofy for me. The only thing that I can think of is some conflict with my Video Card drivers and Windoze somehow. But I still can't figure out why it's working with the Viewsonic and not with the Samsung.

I guess that the real moment of truth is when I bring this computer back home and I get it hooked up again with the Samsung and we'll see if things go sour again.

Anyways, for what it's worth I emailed Plextor support and they emailed back suggesting that I reinstall the EIDE drivers again saying that sometimes it get's corrupted and messed up. I didn't do that yet since it's now working.

HDD - Primary Master
CDROM - Primary Slave
Plextor - Secondary Master

I did make sure that everything was pressed in properly and all that. Just to make sure. Who knows? BTW, i'm running the latest firmware for the Plex, 1.07.

xjerryx,

Have you got your Plex working yet? You might want to try out the suggestion the Plex support guys said above. If you want, i'll forward you the email I got from them with the details.

ironchef_sakai@hotmail.com

As for what the MS site says it's pretty much what the Plex guys are recommending. Basically, it's saying that you've found your car, recognized it, but you can't get it running because it's missing the spark plugs which prevents ignition. So, you have to get your "car" reinstalled or "replaced" at the dealership so the next time you jump into your car to hit the mall it starts and runs properly. That's basically it.

Only in this case the suggestion is to reinstall the EIDE drivers for your EIDE device recognition part of Windows from the Win98 disk. Somehow Windows is missing a vital piece that's preventing a device (in our case a Plex cdr/w) from being 100% recognized.

Hope this helps.

xjerryx

things keep getting worse for mine. After trying numerous things, now the drive is not even recognized in the Device Manager. I'm about to go crazy. To add a wrench to things, I'm using W2K, not 98.

bill_n_opus

That's frustrating.

Just to make sure:

- are you sure your CMOS settings are correct?
- have you tried upgrading your bios?
- have you tried upgrading your EIDE drivers?
- what firmware are you using?
- have you searched around various forums re: specific
problems with your cdr/w and win2k?
- you sure your jumpers are set correctly?
- you sure that you've pressed in the IDE ribbon cable
in all the way with your mobo IDE controller?
- you sure you have your powersupplies hooked up properly?

If you haven't already do a search for the possible answer to your problem over at the anandtech.com forums
If it's not there then you should consider posting there as well since many anandtechers have your drive. You may also want to consider alt.comp.peripherals.cdr on usenet at deja.com

If that doesn't work have you emailed Plextor customer service? I had pretty good response times with them and they were helpful and considerate. I've had a good experience. Give them a shot.

Good luck.