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  #1  
Old February 27th 04, 10:48 PM
*Vanguard*
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Posts: n/a
Default

"John" said in news:FiD%b.10213$UU.7111@lakeread01:
I have a weird boot problem. I have 2 hard drives. And I have
verified the jumper settings and they are correct.

If I have just one hard drive connected, it boots fine.

If I have two hard drives conneted at the same time it doesnt boot.
It gives a disk boot error.

Now the strange part. If I have a bootable cd in the cd rom but it
does not boot from it, it will boot from my hd with out any problems.

Any idea on what could be causing this?

Thanks!


Some things to check (don't know if all apply to your problem):

- If using ATA-66 or faster hard drives, are you using an 80-wire/40-pin
cable to connect them, or are you using an older 40-wire/40-pin cable? The
CD-ROM drive can still use the old 40-wire/40-pin cable since it goes only
to ATA-33, but you'll need to use the 80-wire/40-pin cables for
ATA-66/100/133 hard drives.

- If you are jumpering the hard drives to be master or slave, are you using
a ribbon cable that does NOT have a tiny piece of wire (I think it is for
signal line #34) punched out? If you look close to the end connector on the
cable (I think it's at the end you connect to the motherboard), see if there
is a 1/4" section or so of the ribbon cable that looks like it has been
punched out (so a small piece of the wire for that signal line is gone). If
so, you are using a cable-select ribbon cable and need to configure your
hard drives to use cable select rather than use the master/slave settings.
I prefer to manually configure the master/slave relationship of my drives so
I don't use cable-select ribbon cables. For pre-fab computers built in an
assembly line, they don't want to waste time figuring out how to jumper the
drives so they leave them all configured for cable select and then use a
cable-select modified ribbon cable.

- Or, do you want to use cable select (which means ALL drives whether for
hard drives or CD-type drives are configured to use cable select AND you use
a cable-select cable)? If so, are the hard drives from the same
manufacturer? I've had problems in the past (but not recently) where even
using a master/slave setup with a Western Digital as master and with a
Seagate as slave wouldn't work. IDE means integrated device electronics
(i.e., the drive controller has been moved onto the drive). The master
drive has to wait until it gets a signal from the slave that the slave is
ready and then reports itself (and slave) as ready to the system. If the
controllers don't communicate well, then you find a mix of brands of hard
drives don't work well together. The only solution (other than wasting
money to buy same-brand drives) is to attach the hard drives to different
channels. Connect one hard drive (as master) to the first IDE port (IDE0)
and the other hard drive (also as master) to the second IDE port (IDE1).
Then both are master drives with no slave and their controllers don't have
to be 100% compatibile with each other (and hopefully a CD-type drive is
compatible with whatever hard drive is shared on the same IDE channel). So
whether you use cable select or master/slave, it might help to put the 2
drives on separate IDE ports.

- You mentioned they are jumpered correctly and yet you still have a problem
using them so, to us, there's a good chance they are not jumpered correctly.
You have 2 hard drives and 1 (?) CD-type drive. Are they all connected to
the motherboard's IDE ports? Do some go to an IDE controller expansion
card? One configuration would be to have the boot hard drive as master on
IDE0 (and the only drive on that IDE channel) and on IDE1 you have the other
hard drive as master and the CD-type drive as slave. But other
configurations are possible. What do you have?

- I don't know why having a bootable CD in the CD-type drive (but from which
you do NOT boot) would "fix" the problem. But then I still don't know which
hard drives are configured as master/slave or cable select, what type of
ribbon cables you are using, and onto which IDE ports the hard drives and
CD-type drive are connected.

- Could be something in your BIOS setup. Is the drive detection configured
to Auto? What's the boot sequence for which drives in what order are used
for booting the system? Have you tried to clear the CMOS table (a copy of
the BIOS) in case it got corrupted? I have seen where the CMOS copy of BIOS
got corrupted and caused severe problems with the computer. Sometimes a CRC
error gets reported but I've also seen where there was no error and clearing
the CMOS (to force a new copy of the BIOS settings get written to it) would
fix the problem. Remember to record any customized settings before clearing
CMOS.

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__________________________________________________ __________


  #2  
Old February 28th 04, 12:57 AM
V W Wall
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Posts: n/a
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*Vanguard* wrote:

"John" said in news:FiD%b.10213$UU.7111@lakeread01:
I have a weird boot problem. I have 2 hard drives. And I have
verified the jumper settings and they are correct.

If I have just one hard drive connected, it boots fine.

If I have two hard drives conneted at the same time it doesnt boot.
It gives a disk boot error.

Now the strange part. If I have a bootable cd in the cd rom but it
does not boot from it, it will boot from my hd with out any problems.

Any idea on what could be causing this?

Thanks!


Some things to check (don't know if all apply to your problem):

- If using ATA-66 or faster hard drives, are you using an 80-wire/40-pin
cable to connect them, or are you using an older 40-wire/40-pin cable? The
CD-ROM drive can still use the old 40-wire/40-pin cable since it goes only
to ATA-33, but you'll need to use the 80-wire/40-pin cables for
ATA-66/100/133 hard drives.


This id correct.

- If you are jumpering the hard drives to be master or slave, are you using
a ribbon cable that does NOT have a tiny piece of wire (I think it is for
signal line #34) punched out? If you look close to the end connector on the
cable (I think it's at the end you connect to the motherboard), see if there
is a 1/4" section or so of the ribbon cable that looks like it has been
punched out (so a small piece of the wire for that signal line is gone). If
so, you are using a cable-select ribbon cable and need to configure your
hard drives to use cable select rather than use the master/slave settings.


This is not true. Cable select is determined by pin 28 *not* pin 34, which
is used to detect the presence of an eighty conductor cable. All 80 wire
cables made to ATA spec will work either as jumper select or cable select.
Some have the "cut" conductor you reference, while others achieve the same
results internal to the motherboard connector.

I prefer to manually configure the master/slave relationship of my drives so
I don't use cable-select ribbon cables. For pre-fab computers built in an
assembly line, they don't want to waste time figuring out how to jumper the
drives so they leave them all configured for cable select and then use a
cable-select modified ribbon cable.


There is no such thing--all cables made to the ATA spec can be used.

- Or, do you want to use cable select (which means ALL drives whether for
hard drives or CD-type drives are configured to use cable select AND you use
a cable-select cable)?


See above.

Virg Wall
--

Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law
  #3  
Old February 28th 04, 09:34 AM
John
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Boot problem

I have a weird boot problem. I have 2 hard drives. And I have verified the
jumper settings and they are correct.

If I have just one hard drive connected, it boots fine.

If I have two hard drives conneted at the same time it doesnt boot. It
gives a disk boot error.

Now the strange part. If I have a bootable cd in the cd rom but it does not
boot from it, it will boot from my hd with out any problems.

Any idea on what could be causing this?

Thanks!


  #4  
Old February 28th 04, 11:51 AM
*Vanguard*
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"V W Wall" said in :
This is not true. Cable select is determined by pin 28 *not* pin 34,


I'm a little more awake than last time. You are correct. Pin 28 is for
CSEL (cable select). Pin 34 is for PDIAG/CBLID. PDIAG was the original
designation and CBLID was added for 80-wire detection. Pin 34 cannot be
shorted to ground in the mobo otherwise every ribbon cable connected to it
would look like an 80-wire ribbon cable. Pin 34 is shorted inside the blue
connector (on the mobo end); see
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/id...Cable80-c.html.

I don't have any 80-wire ribbon cables at the moment where I can see a tiny
(3mm) cutout section of a wire. According to one user in these newsgroups,
"The wire is cut near the motherboard end of the cable so that the drives
will not "see" the ground on that pin." If you have a ribbon cable with the
cutout, for which signal pin is the cutout, or is it in one of the shielding
ground wires?

Although it sounds great to spout specifications, what I've measured doesn't
fully jive with what has often been touted in the newsgroups as the spec for
80-wire layout of signal wires (to pins) and for shielding wires (to reduce
crosstalk). I had been told that the signal wires (going to the pins) were
the odd numbered wires (which meant the outside wire on the striped side was
for pin 1) and the even numbered wires were the shielding ground wires.
When ohming out a couple of 80-wire ribbon cables, that's not what I found.
For my spare 2 ribbon cables (both 80-wire/40-pin), the odd wires were the
shielding grounds and the even ones were the signals (going to the pins).
Then I noticed the above linked article to PC Guide says the added ground
wires can be either the even or odd set of wires. I haven't ohmed out other
ribbon cables to get a consensus. Great, now I don't know if the outermost
striped end of the ribbon cable is for pin 1 or a shield ground. Or looking
at it in reverse, pin 1 could be on wire #1 or #2. I have to test it to
find out.

Pin 34 did show continuity between the black and grey connectors (these go
to the hard drives). So, for the drives, this line is still connected
between them. This is still a requirement in 2-drive configurations as
PCDIAG from the slave uses this to tell the master drive that it is ready.
"PDIAG (passed diagnostics) is a signal used by drive 1 to tell drive 0 when
(and if) it has passed its diagnostics following a power-up or a reset.
Drive 0 uses this information to inform the system of a drive 1 failure"
(according to
http://www.uib.es/c-calculo/scimgs/f...Interface.html).
However, neither of these had their pin 34 connected to pin 34 on the mobo
connector (blue), so there is an open in the wire between the mobo and drive
connectors. I could not see any cutout in the ribbon cable along the wire
for pin 34, so it must be the ribbon cable is cut back on this wire so it
doesn't engage the forked tooth for that pin, the cutout in the ribbon cable
is just above the forked tooth so there is no wire to engage into the tooth,
or the forked tooth is broken from the pin. So you might see the cutout or
you might not.

Also, for pin 34 to be grounded to indicate an 80-wire ribbon cable, the
only way the motherboard could see that is if pin 34 actually went to a
ground pin on the connector. The motherboard can only see what's on the
connector pins. For the blue (mobo) connector, pin 34 showed continuity to
pins 2, 22, 24, and 40 (there are more ground pins but that was enough; see
http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_IDE.html for a pinout of the
connector). So pin 34 (but only in the blue mobo connector) is shorted to
ground.

So, to summarize how pin 34 is used:

- You don't know if the signal pins use the odd- or even-numbered wires.
You'll have to check by ohming out the pin to see if it is connected to wire
#1 or #2. For my 2 samples, pin 1 went to wire #2 (so signals were on the
even-numbered wires).

- For the 80-wire/40-pin cable, pin 34 on the mobo connector (blue) is
disconnected from the ribbon cable. Pin 34 on the drive connectors (grey
and black) are connected. You may see a cutout in the ribbon cable, you
might not. I've never seen a cutout in any of my 80-wire/40-pin ribbon
cables.

- Pin 34 on the pin side (only to the mobo) of the blue connector is shorted
to ground.

Me: I don't use cable-select ribbon cables.

V W Wall: There is no such thing--all cables made to the ATA spec can be

used.

"To use cable select, both devices on the channel are set to the "cable
select" (CS) setting, usually by a special jumper. Then, a special cable is
used." "On a cable select cable, one of the connectors (the "master
connector") has pin #28 connected through to the cable, but the other (the
"slave connector") has an open circuit on that pin (no connection)." This
according to http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_CS.htm. You don't
use "special" cables for standard installations. I had heard of cable
select cables but never bothered to use them or even investigate into them
because I always want to determine which drive is slave and master instead
of worrying about which is connected to which connector (although the
preferred hookup is to have the master at the end of the ribbon cable). So
then I ohmed out my 2 sample 80-wire/40-pin ribbon cables for pin 28.

You're right ... mostly! Although they are 80-wire/40-pin ribbon cables and
NOT used at anytime for a cable select configuration, they appear to be
setup to be usable for cable select (if you configure your drives that way).
Pin 28 on the mobo connector (blue) shows continuity to pin 28 in the far
end drive connector (black) but pin 28 in the middle connector (grey) is not
connected to either of the other connectors. In fact, by the feel of the
needle I was inserting into the grey connector, it feels like there isn't
even a female pin in that hole. So at one time it might've been that pin 28
was connected across all the connectors for non-cable select setups and a
special cable-select ribbon cable was needed for cable select setups, but at
some point all ribbon cables became cable-select cables whether you used
them that way or not.

From what I see for the ATA specs at www.t13.org, CSEL (being open on pin
28) was *optional* in ATA-1 (http://www.t13.org/project/d0791r4c.pdf) and
ATA-2 (http://www.t13.org/project/d0948r4c.pdf), plus they mention "Special
cabling can be used by the system manufacturer to selectively ground CSEL".
Again, you don't use "special" cabling for *standard* setups. Sure sounds
like there used to be normal (non-cable select) cables and cable-select
cables. I didn't find a link for ATA-3, and for ATA-4 and up they want me
to buy the spec from ANSI (no thanks). So at what point the "special"
cabling that would provide CSEL became standard is unknown to me. I do
remember that at one time you had to be careful to NOT get stuck using a
cable-select version of the ribbon cable if you were configuring the drives
as master and slave, or, the other way around, you had to be sure you used a
cable-select version of the ribbon cable if you wanted to use cable select
on the hard drives.

--
__________________________________________________ __________
*** Post replies to newsgroup. E-mail is not accepted. ***
__________________________________________________ __________


  #5  
Old February 28th 04, 12:00 PM
*Vanguard*
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"John" said in news:EVW%b.15758$UU.14950@lakeread01:
Disk Boot Failure, Insert System disk and press enter

that is what I get when it doesnt have the cd rom in

yet it is booting off the hard drive w/ the cd rom in

some how it seems like the boot files didnt get transfered over

any other ideas?

Thanks!


You haven't mentioned which operating system you are using.

You still haven't mentioned if you are using master/slave or cable select.
Maybe you have the boot drive on the middle (grey) connector on the ribbon
cable and have the drive configured as cable select but have the drive on
the end connector set to master or slave. Besides mentioning if you are
setting up the drives as master/slave or cable select, tell us the brand and
model of the drives so we can verify you are using the correct jumper
settings.

Would also help to know if you are using old 40-wire/40-pin ribbon cables or
the newer 80-wire/40-pin ribbon cables. Are the hard drives
UDMA-66/100/133, or UDMA-33? What does the motherboard support (or whatever
you are plugging the drives and ribbon cable into)? What motherboard?


  #6  
Old February 28th 04, 03:37 PM
Neogenesis
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

What motherboard make and model? whatever motherboard you have, check in
bios it boots first to HDD0 or HDD1 if HDD0 don't exist.

I assume the boot drive is master and at the end of the cable and other hard
drive is slave and in the middle of the cable?

or

Try cable select and put the boot drive on the end of the cable and the
other hard drive in the middle.

hope that helps

"John" wrote in message
news:EVW%b.15758$UU.14950@lakeread01...
Disk Boot Failure, Insert System disk and press enter

that is what I get when it doesnt have the cd rom in

yet it is booting off the hard drive w/ the cd rom in

some how it seems like the boot files didnt get transfered over

any other ideas?

Thanks!

"John" wrote in message
news:FiD%b.10213$UU.7111@lakeread01...
I have a weird boot problem. I have 2 hard drives. And I have verified

the
jumper settings and they are correct.

If I have just one hard drive connected, it boots fine.

If I have two hard drives conneted at the same time it doesnt boot. It
gives a disk boot error.

Now the strange part. If I have a bootable cd in the cd rom but it does

not
boot from it, it will boot from my hd with out any problems.

Any idea on what could be causing this?

Thanks!






  #7  
Old February 28th 04, 06:57 PM
V W Wall
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

*Vanguard* wrote:

"V W Wall" said in :
This is not true. Cable select is determined by pin 28 *not* pin 34,


I'm a little more awake than last time. You are correct. Pin 28 is for
CSEL (cable select). Pin 34 is for PDIAG/CBLID. PDIAG was the original
designation and CBLID was added for 80-wire detection. Pin 34 cannot be
shorted to ground in the mobo otherwise every ribbon cable connected to it
would look like an 80-wire ribbon cable. Pin 34 is shorted inside the blue
connector (on the mobo end); see
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/id...Cable80-c.html.

I don't have any 80-wire ribbon cables at the moment where I can see a tiny
(3mm) cutout section of a wire. According to one user in these newsgroups,
"The wire is cut near the motherboard end of the cable so that the drives
will not "see" the ground on that pin." If you have a ribbon cable with the
cutout, for which signal pin is the cutout, or is it in one of the shielding
ground wires?


It's definitely the wire which would connect to pin 34 on the MB. I assume
that those cables without the "cut" do not connect the wire to pin 34 on
the motherboard.

Although it sounds great to spout specifications, what I've measured doesn't
fully jive with what has often been touted in the newsgroups as the spec for
80-wire layout of signal wires (to pins) and for shielding wires (to reduce
crosstalk). I had been told that the signal wires (going to the pins) were
the odd numbered wires (which meant the outside wire on the striped side was
for pin 1) and the even numbered wires were the shielding ground wires.
When ohming out a couple of 80-wire ribbon cables, that's not what I found.
For my spare 2 ribbon cables (both 80-wire/40-pin), the odd wires were the
shielding grounds and the even ones were the signals (going to the pins).
Then I noticed the above linked article to PC Guide says the added ground
wires can be either the even or odd set of wires. I haven't ohmed out other
ribbon cables to get a consensus. Great, now I don't know if the outermost
striped end of the ribbon cable is for pin 1 or a shield ground. Or looking
at it in reverse, pin 1 could be on wire #1 or #2. I have to test it to
find out.


The Seagate Barracuda Product Manual says: "This (ATA/100) cable uses
even-numbered conductors connected to the ground pins to improve signal
integrety."

It also says: "The drive detects the 80-conductor by sensing a capacitor at
the host side through the CBLID-signal." Don't see how it can do this if
CBLID, (pin 34), is not even connected to the "host".

Pin 34 did show continuity between the black and grey connectors (these go
to the hard drives). So, for the drives, this line is still connected
between them. This is still a requirement in 2-drive configurations as
PCDIAG from the slave uses this to tell the master drive that it is ready.
"PDIAG (passed diagnostics) is a signal used by drive 1 to tell drive 0 when
(and if) it has passed its diagnostics following a power-up or a reset.
Drive 0 uses this information to inform the system of a drive 1 failure"
(according to
http://www.uib.es/c-calculo/scimgs/f...Interface.html).
However, neither of these had their pin 34 connected to pin 34 on the mobo
connector (blue), so there is an open in the wire between the mobo and drive
connectors. I could not see any cutout in the ribbon cable along the wire
for pin 34, so it must be the ribbon cable is cut back on this wire so it
doesn't engage the forked tooth for that pin, the cutout in the ribbon cable
is just above the forked tooth so there is no wire to engage into the tooth,
or the forked tooth is broken from the pin. So you might see the cutout or
you might not.


I have cables with and without the cutout.

Also, for pin 34 to be grounded to indicate an 80-wire ribbon cable, the
only way the motherboard could see that is if pin 34 actually went to a
ground pin on the connector. The motherboard can only see what's on the
connector pins. For the blue (mobo) connector, pin 34 showed continuity to
pins 2, 22, 24, and 40 (there are more ground pins but that was enough; see
http://www.interfacebus.com/Design_Connector_IDE.html for a pinout of the
connector). So pin 34 (but only in the blue mobo connector) is shorted to
ground.

So, to summarize how pin 34 is used:

- You don't know if the signal pins use the odd- or even-numbered wires.
You'll have to check by ohming out the pin to see if it is connected to wire
#1 or #2. For my 2 samples, pin 1 went to wire #2 (so signals were on the
even-numbered wires).


Does it really make any difference. As long as they are between the signal
wires, they serve their purpose.

- For the 80-wire/40-pin cable, pin 34 on the mobo connector (blue) is
disconnected from the ribbon cable. Pin 34 on the drive connectors (grey
and black) are connected. You may see a cutout in the ribbon cable, you
might not. I've never seen a cutout in any of my 80-wire/40-pin ribbon
cables.

- Pin 34 on the pin side (only to the mobo) of the blue connector is shorted
to ground.

Me: I don't use cable-select ribbon cables.

V W Wall: There is no such thing--all cables made to the ATA spec can be

used.

"To use cable select, both devices on the channel are set to the "cable
select" (CS) setting, usually by a special jumper. Then, a special cable is
used." "On a cable select cable, one of the connectors (the "master
connector") has pin #28 connected through to the cable, but the other (the
"slave connector") has an open circuit on that pin (no connection)." This
according to http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf_CS.htm. You don't
use "special" cables for standard installations. I had heard of cable
select cables but never bothered to use them or even investigate into them
because I always want to determine which drive is slave and master instead
of worrying about which is connected to which connector (although the
preferred hookup is to have the master at the end of the ribbon cable). So
then I ohmed out my 2 sample 80-wire/40-pin ribbon cables for pin 28.

You're right ... mostly! Although they are 80-wire/40-pin ribbon cables and
NOT used at anytime for a cable select configuration, they appear to be
setup to be usable for cable select (if you configure your drives that way).
Pin 28 on the mobo connector (blue) shows continuity to pin 28 in the far
end drive connector (black) but pin 28 in the middle connector (grey) is not
connected to either of the other connectors. In fact, by the feel of the
needle I was inserting into the grey connector, it feels like there isn't
even a female pin in that hole. So at one time it might've been that pin 28
was connected across all the connectors for non-cable select setups and a
special cable-select ribbon cable was needed for cable select setups, but at
some point all ribbon cables became cable-select cables whether you used
them that way or not.


I thought that's what I said! ;-)

I have seen cables that did not correspond to the ATA spec. One cable even
had the MB connector in the middle. It was easier to ground pin pin 28 on
only one drive connector. Leaving the socket out of the middle connector's
pin 28 is one way of grounding that lead only on the end connector.

From what I see for the ATA specs at www.t13.org, CSEL (being open on pin
28) was *optional* in ATA-1 (http://www.t13.org/project/d0791r4c.pdf) and
ATA-2 (http://www.t13.org/project/d0948r4c.pdf), plus they mention "Special
cabling can be used by the system manufacturer to selectively ground CSEL".
Again, you don't use "special" cabling for *standard* setups. Sure sounds
like there used to be normal (non-cable select) cables and cable-select
cables. I didn't find a link for ATA-3, and for ATA-4 and up they want me
to buy the spec from ANSI (no thanks). So at what point the "special"
cabling that would provide CSEL became standard is unknown to me. I do
remember that at one time you had to be careful to NOT get stuck using a
cable-select version of the ribbon cable if you were configuring the drives
as master and slave, or, the other way around, you had to be sure you used a
cable-select version of the ribbon cable if you wanted to use cable select
on the hard drives.


I think the spec that defined the 80 wire cables also defined the CSEL
connections.

There is as much confusion about hard drives as there is about the software
used with them! With SATA coming along, we'll probably see a new round of
mis-information. ;-)

Virg Wall
--

Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic.

Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law
  #8  
Old February 28th 04, 10:43 PM
*Vanguard*
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

"V W Wall" wrote in message
...

I don't have any 80-wire ribbon cables at the moment where I can see

a tiny
(3mm) cutout section of a wire.
snip


It's definitely the wire which would connect to pin 34 on the MB. I

assume
that those cables without the "cut" do not connect the wire to pin 34

on
the motherboard.


No, the motherboard's pin 34 would have to be connected. Just because
it support UDMA-66 and up, it still needs to support the older drives
with the old ribbon cables. If the disconnect were on the mobo, even
the old 40-wire/40-pin ribbon cables would get "detected" (i.e., fixed)
to look like 80-wire/40-pin cables. That would mean an inappropriately
high ATA mode would get selected that the old ribbon cable and old drive
cannot support.

That's why my guess is that if you cannot see the cutout then it can
still exist but under the cap on the connector that presses the ribbon
cable against the forked teeth for the pins, or the tooth is broken so
the pin and forked tooth are not connected. I really don't want to
destroy my only 2 spare 80-wire/40-pin ribbon cables to find out but
curiousity might someday overcome my thriftiness.

The Seagate Barracuda Product Manual says: "This (ATA/100) cable uses
even-numbered conductors connected to the ground pins to improve

signal
integrety."

It also says: "The drive detects the 80-conductor by sensing a

capacitor at
the host side through the CBLID-signal." Don't see how it can do this

if
CBLID, (pin 34), is not even connected to the "host".


Yeah, that's a good one.

I have cables with and without the cutout.


And the cutout is in the wire for pin 34, right?

- You don't know if the signal pins use the odd- or even-numbered

wires.
You'll have to check by ohming out the pin to see if it is connected

to wire
#1 or #2. For my 2 samples, pin 1 went to wire #2 (so signals were

on the
even-numbered wires).


Does it really make any difference. As long as they are between the

signal
wires, they serve their purpose.


Yes, if you're trying to troubleshoot a dysfunctional machine. Could be
the ribbon cable got pinched around a sharp chassis corner and frayed or
cut into the outside wire. If it's a ground, no big deal, especially
since there is no signal wire on the other side in which it will reduce
crosstalk. You don't need to toss a perfectly good cable. If it's a
signal line (pin 1 for Reset) you do need to be concerned. Is the cable
compromised, can you simply apply a coating to prevent furture shorting
if it's a signal or not bother if it's a ground, and so on. Yeah, the
best answer is to replace the ribbon cable but when you're in the north
woods of Minnesota, some tiny town, or elsewhere in the field, your
supplies are limited and you might not have a handy fresh unused
replacement. No everything dealing with computers requires replacement
with brand new parts or happens in a big city with lots of retailers
available for immediate parts replacement.

As seen, whether the shield ground wires are the even- or odd-numbered
wires makes a difference in determining what a cutout was for. Count
using the wrong offset and you think the cutout was for a shield ground
instead of a signal.

You're right ... mostly! Although they are 80-wire/40-pin ribbon

cables and
NOT used at anytime for a cable select configuration, they appear to

be
setup to be usable for cable select (if you configure your drives

that way).
Pin 28 on the mobo connector (blue) shows continuity to pin 28 in

the far
end drive connector (black) but pin 28 in the middle connector

(grey) is not
connected to either of the other connectors.


I thought that's what I said! ;-)


No, you said that ALL of the ATA-compliant ribbon cables supported CSEL.
I disagree. ATA-1 and -2 specs indicate that at one time pin 28 was not
used (i.e., connected to all connectors but unused) in "normal" or
standard setups using master/slave configurations and a *special*
cable-select version of the ribbon cable allowed you to use CSEL. If
the middle connector were NOT unconnected (open), you couldn't use that
ribbon cable for CSEL on the drives. I'm not paying ANSI to get copies
of ATA-3 on up to see if the spec changed to make all ribbon cables CSEL
capable, or to see if it is still listed as an optional configuration
but maybe the cable and drive makers decided on making them all CSEL
capable to eliminate confusion and bad hardware setups since it didn't
affect master/slave setups.

As I said, my recollection was that at one time, maybe 5 or more years
ago, you had to be careful not to use the wrong ribbon cable type. If
you wanted a CSEL setup, you could not use a standard ribbon cable
(meant for master/slave configurations) that had pin 28 connected on the
middle connector. As a matter of fact, if you go to the parts store and
grabbed the connectors and ribbon cable and use a vise to squeeze the
connectors onto the ribbon cable, the resulting cable could NOT be used
for CSEL configurations (because pin 28 for the middle connector was
then connected to the other pin 28's on the other connectors). This
homemade cable works fine for master/slave but not for cable-select.
Knowing that pin 34 is supposed to disconnected at the mobo end (via
cutout) and if pin 28 is now supposed to not be connected to the middle
connector (again another cutout) are important if you want to make your
own custom length cables. Now with CSEL not being connected on the
middle connector, CBLID getting disconnected from the drive connectors
and shorted to ground inside the blue mobo connector, color coding, and
knowing which 80-wire connector to use so you match its odd- or
even-numbered positioning for the shielding ground wires, I haven't
bothered making homemade ribbon cables for quite awhile. The days of
just squeezing the connectors onto a ribbon cable are gone.

I think the spec that defined the 80 wire cables also defined the CSEL
connections.


The CSEL signal was defined way back in the ATA-1 spec (that required
"special" cabling to work). From
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/di...ltraata66.html and
http://www.computerhope.com/help/ide.htm#02, 40-wire/40-pin cables were
specified up to ATA-4 (for xfer modes up to UDMA mode 2 for 33Mbps). It
was ATA-5 (for UDMA mode 4 for 66Mbps; UDMA mode 3 was 44Mbps but often
called UDMA-50) which introduced 80-wire/40-pin cables.

There is as much confusion about hard drives as there is about the

software
used with them! With SATA coming along, we'll probably see a new

round of
mis-information. ;-)


Yeah, we'll have to get used to calling the old ports as PATA (parallel
ATA) ports to differentiate them from SATA (serial ATA) ports. Calling
them IDE ports was wrong but fell into common usage. [E]IDE = enhanced
integrated drive electronics, and this controller is now on the drive,
but ATA (Advanced Technology Attachment) defines the interface spec. In
fact, EIDE/ATAPI (EIDE/ATA Packet Interface to include CD-type devices)
is the full spec to describe the interface but usage degenerated to just
IDE. So PATA and SATA seem to be the new buzzwords to use to
differentiate the port types. I haven't had the time to read up on SATA
(http://www.serialata.org/).

  #9  
Old February 29th 04, 07:53 AM
John
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default

Disk Boot Failure, Insert System disk and press enter

that is what I get when it doesnt have the cd rom in

yet it is booting off the hard drive w/ the cd rom in

some how it seems like the boot files didnt get transfered over

any other ideas?

Thanks!

"John" wrote in message
news:FiD%b.10213$UU.7111@lakeread01...
I have a weird boot problem. I have 2 hard drives. And I have verified

the
jumper settings and they are correct.

If I have just one hard drive connected, it boots fine.

If I have two hard drives conneted at the same time it doesnt boot. It
gives a disk boot error.

Now the strange part. If I have a bootable cd in the cd rom but it does

not
boot from it, it will boot from my hd with out any problems.

Any idea on what could be causing this?

Thanks!




 




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