Working on an HP pavilion 4445. (celeron 333). Friend was having weird visual glitches when he plays freecell. Figured just a graphics problem or Windows98 needed updated. Did all that, still problems. Switched cables on the cdrom because that wasn't working. Reformated to install 98se instead, but the cdrom isn't working right again. From dos prompt, sometimes "dir" on the cd will work, sometimes not. I got as far as windows setup before it stopped reading again. Could the controller card for that ide channel be bad? I tried hooking up the cdrom and hdd to the same channel (the hdd's one), but it wont get past POST or let me enter setup before locking up.

Yes, it's a possibility.

Did you make sure to set the Master/Slave jumpers on both drives correctly when you added the CD to the hard drive's IDE channel? The hard drive should be jumpered as Master and the CD-ROM jumpered as Slave; if they aren't set that way, you'll have a device conflict which can cause the lock-up you're experiencing.

They're both set on cable select, so I didn't think much of it. the other cdrom I used also came from an emachine, which could explain things. mixing hp and emachine? im just asking for a piece of junk.

Cable select can cause problems itself ,i would set it to master and slave to make sure!!

Agreed.


Definitely agreed! :mrgreen: