CMos not Detecting, But POST does

[deathrail]

I just got a computer for setting up and configuring a new computer for a friend.
The one given to me is an old Athlon 750, and was working before ...

I have check, re check, and now have tripple checked to make sure the the jumper settings are correct for the drive, basic 2 drive system master and slave, hard drive and dvd writter.

When I enter the Cmos under " Standard Bios settings" I can only see the hard drive set as master, it will not recongnise the dvd rom.
But when i start the computer up and let it go to POST it shows me the drives set properly...

I CAN boot from the dvd drive and start on installation windows process, but as soon as it gets to "Windows is starting up" my dvd player starts going nuts... and it freezes up. During this time there isnt any activity from the hard drive LED, so I am figuring that when I get to that point its trying to dump info on the hard drive and cant so it doesnt know what to do.

I know these devices are working properly because they came out of a machine that was runnning them fine.

Here are a list of things I have tried:

- Checked to make sure harddrive was master and dvd was slave.
- Set the harddrive to master, and the dvd to master on seperate channels.
- Ran with only dvd rom set as master, no dvd rom.
- Used a different cdrom device and followed mentioned steps.
- Reset the bios by jumper, incase something was set I was missing.
- Used a different harddrive.
- loaded optimized settings
- Slept on it(incase it was a nightmare), woke up and was doing the same ****

I have posted this else where, and someone insisted I try a RAID controller because IDE channels are not uncommon to fail....
I do not feel this is the case since i can detect the hard drive, and POST shows me both drives just fine. Also not only can I not afford one at this time, I cannot find one around my town with out ordering one.
I know the raid controller will work because thats what they do is run ide through pci,
I would like to resolve this issue until I am certain an channel failure is what happend.

[Adrian Wong]

In older BIOSes, the CD or DVD drive will NOT show up in the CMOS setup menu. It will only be auto-detected during the boot-up process. So, you should NOT disable the IDE channel that is serving it for a faster boot.

You should try setting your DVD writer to Cable Select. I have experienced some CD/DVD drives not working right when set to Master or Slave, especially when paired up with another drive.

If that doesn't work, try changing the IDE cable. If THAT fails, try testing the DVD writer in another system. See if it works right.

[1031982]

I agree with Adrian. I would say check the IDE cable early on. Especially if it's a new cable and the DVD-Rom is alone. Why not post the make, model, and date of manufacturing of the DVD-Rom as well if you still need help.

Another thing to try is disconnect the IDE cable from the HDD's and try that on the DVD-Rom. That could also quickly verify the cable. Leave all the power connectors connected to the drives.