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OK, some background info...

I have built a new PC, Athlon 1700 XP, 512 DDR Ram, Ricoh CD RW & DVD Combo drive, 40 GB HD, hard disk caddy (for swapping HDs with a 2GB H/D installed), SB Live, NIC connected to a linksys router through a broadband cable modem, running Windows XP.

When I built the PC first of all every thing worked fine, had some minor problems with boot up (problems recognising the h/d caddy), but CD was good. Loaded software, copied a CD to check the drive was working, all perfect.

Also had a problem with temperature, so I decided to swap cases, a fantastic coolermaster 201, brilliant case dropped both my CPU and M/B temps by 10C at idle and heavy usage.

Anyway I digress, also decided to install a SB Audigy Platinum. Took a bit of messing around but all is now working except.....

My CD drive will play audio CDs, I guess thats to do with the internal CD to Sound card connecting wire, but.....

In any music player software package (i.e Realone, Windows Player etc.) it only lists 5 tracks, I know there are 11 and it plays all 11 but only reads these five and there is no listing, like track title etc.

These same 5 tracks are visible whatever audio CD I put in the drive ??????????

Now when I put in a data disk, although Explorer recognises the drive, absolutly nothing shows being on the CD, it's blank ???

I know the CD works, it plays CDs, I loaded software etc. But now it won't read data CDs, or read audio CDs properly and I have no idea why.

I read somewhere that XP has a problem with more than 2 IDE devices, is this true ?

Also I could change IDE cables to see if there is a problem there.

Any other ideas or thoughts.

Cheers, Shire29

Update....

I had a little play around last night.

First I disconnected the cable from the CD-RW to the sound card, and voila no sound now from a music CD, doh. In explorer I still see only those five tracks? Re-connected the cable, and music sound is back.

For info I have my 40GB HD connected to primary master, the CD-RW on secondary master and the HD caddy on the secondary slave. All jumpers are set correctly, bare in mind my rig has at one point been working correctly.

I had read that windows XP can have problems with more than 2 IDE devices connected so I disconnected the h/d caddy, with no luck, still the same problems.

I also had a look at the cables, and they seem OK, the caddy has been working fine so I see no probs with the cable, but tonight I will try a different cable.

If the change of cable does not work my last hope is to try another CD-RW in case it is the drive itself, but I just get the feeling it's just a config issue.

Oh yes, one more thing, and I know this could be it, in the BIOS the correct model of CD-RW is identified, in windows XP the device recognised is Ricoh but is a different model no. I can't believe this is the problem ? Have logged onto the Ricoh website and there are no driver updates for the poarticular model for XP.

Still there ? zzzzzzzzz

Well thx for listening, please, please any advise ?????

Cheers, Shire29

Try deleting it in Windows and restart. Larry

Larry,

thx, I did try that but with no success.

However, trumpet fanfare.......

I bought a new drive thinking it may be that. I carefully installed the new drive, an LG combo drive, nice piece of kit, but, OH NO, same problem, S***.

Changed the IDE cable, removed the H/D caddy, agghhhhhhhhh. Now I'm getting mad, really mad.

One last thing, I thought I'd try putting the CD Drive as a slave on the primary IDE, and, wait for it, bang your suacepans together, cus we have lift off.

I am now fully functional, so do I have a defunct secondary IDE ? well I don't think so, I mean the H/D caddy was working, although I have not reconnected it yet (too scared).

One thing it might be (a real shot in the dark) is the Audigy Platinum Live Drive.

Originally I did have problems getting my live drive to work. Although I can't be sure of the timing, once I got the live drive working the CD Drive started to play up. Coincedence ??? I am wondering whether there was a resource conflict ?

Anyone know how the live drive works, I mean I know the cable is connected to the soundcard, but maybe...

Well so far so good, I am gonna leave well alone for a while, and enjoy the fruits of my labour.

Thx again for listening, it's been good to have someone to talk too.

Cheers, Blair (Shire29)

PS.

Larry, just wanted to thank you for all your good advice that you post here. I have read a lot of your postings on similar subjects and most of the ideas/possible solutions I have tried came from yourself, including a posting about problems with IDE interface which prompted me to try the IDE switch.

Thx again.

My PC building days are over for a while, misses won't let me spend any more cash and way to stressful.

Cheers, Blair

Well, then you have graduated to a new level: that of "stealth buying." Search using the Site Search to the left with stealth.

If your motherboard(?) has a RAID disk controller in addtion to the normal one, try disabling it. Larry

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