Member Avatar for bill.jeffs

Hi

I recently upgraded to windows vista and decided that its not for me so i want to downgrade... When i tried to set the system to boot from the XP CD i noticed that the IDE optical drives arent showing in BIOS... the wierd thing is their both present in windows and shown in device manager and they both work fine.. i have tried changing the jumper settings from master/slave to cable select but the problem is still there this is very frustrating... if anyone can let me know a reason for this would be much appreciated.

thanks in advance..

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by caperjack

Dani AI

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Building on 's registry suggestion (that helps Windows-level "missing drive" symptoms), the steps below focus on the BIOS/hardware side where detection needs to happen before any OS loads. The goal is to get the firmware to "see" the optical device so it can appear in the boot order.

  • In BIOS, force autodetect for each IDE channel rather than leaving entries at "None". Look under Integrated Peripherals / IDE Configuration (or Standard CMOS / Advanced BIOS Features on some boards) and run the "Auto Detect" or "Detect Drives" for Primary and Secondary channels.
  • Verify the motherboard's onboard IDE controller is enabled. If the optical drive is on an add-in PCI IDE/SATA card, enable that card's option ROM in BIOS so the firmware can boot from devices attached to it.
  • Check cabling and connector positions: use a known-good 40- or 80-wire IDE cable, put the master on the cable end (black connector) and the slave on the middle connector, and test with a single optical drive connected to eliminate master/slave conflicts.
  • Try a one-time boot menu (common keys: F12, F11, F8, Esc - check the motherboard manual). If the regular boot-priority menu doesn't list a CD option, the one-time menu sometimes exposes it.
  • Workarounds: temporarily unplug the hard disk to force a CD boot; use a USB optical drive or create a bootable USB installer if the BIOS supports USB boot; or update the motherboard BIOS to the latest stable release (follow vendor instructions and back up settings).

Cautions: flashing BIOS can be risky—follow vendor instructions exactly and back up important data. If these steps still fail, note the motherboard make/model and consult its manual or vendor support; that information often reveals the exact BIOS screens and keys to use for drive detection and boot selection.

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Member Avatar for bill.jeffs

any one have any ideas what this could be as its driving me crazy!

Member Avatar for bill.jeffs

thanks for the advice... not sure this will really solve my problem though as I can actually see and use the drives like normal in Windows.

The problem I have is that they are not shown in the BIOS.. ??? i.e the system does not show any drives connected when you look at IDE drives despite having both CDRW and DVDRW connected via IDE.

im baffled.

Member Avatar for caperjack

thanks for the advice... not sure this will really solve my problem though as I can actually see and use the drives like normal in Windows.
.

im baffled, seems you are worried about nothing ,they work thats all you need to worry about !! enjoy

Member Avatar for bill.jeffs

well i was fine using them up until now... the problem i have is that i want to downgrade to windows XP... but i cant boot from the XP CD as i cant change the boot device priority in BIOS because the CD drives arent listed... unless there is any short cut do boot from the cd which im not aware of?? i was advised that pressing C on boot up may work but it doesn't.. like you say it wouldnt be a problem otherwise.. is a bit weird though and would nice to know if there is a fix!

Member Avatar for caperjack

my first thought is that you may in the wrong section of the bios for changing boot order ,there are different bios's so im not sure to tell you where to look .but the drives aren't even listed in the section of some bios's where i change the boot order ,who makes your bios ,

Member Avatar for bill.jeffs

im in work right now so i cant remember what bios is i think it may be pheonix... but i dont think im looking in the wrong area... i look at list of ide devies and they are all shown as none, when i got to boot device it only lists the HDD? its very strange not somethin ive come across before!

Member Avatar for caperjack

im in work right now so i cant remember what bios is i think it may be pheonix... but i dont think im looking in the wrong area... i look at list of ide devies and they are all shown as none, when i got to boot device it only lists the HDD? its very strange not somethin ive come across before!

Me either.

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