Boot freezes at 'detecting ide devices...'

I'm running an nf7-s 2.0. I have an 75 gxp IBM 30 gig drive that I haven't used in a while, but I needed to use it lately. I think I tested it as working about a month ago, but I'm not sure on that (I have 2 drives, could've been the other).

Anyway, my 2 other drives will get detected and boot right up, but if I hook this one up (in any combination with the other 2 drives), the bios hangs on 'detecting IDE drives...'

This drive seemed to be in fine shape the last time I played with it, so I'm hoping it isn't dead. Is there anything you guys can think of that I can do to make it work? I tried playing around with the jumpers - master, cable select, no jumpers - and trying different wires to no effect.

Just to be sure, jumpers can face either direction, right?

Oh, also - I have been trying to get the drive to work with the p-ata to s-ata converters and failed - neither of my IBMs work with that setup - and I've been yanking out power cords, jumpers, and the ide connector a decent bit. Could I have broken something?

Any suggestions as to what I could do/try would be appreciated...

I had the same problem! Had to RMA my 75GB 75GXP. Run IBM's Drive fitness test program. I couldn't get the drive to be detected on ANY computer I have after it bombed. I posted a similar thread in the storage forum.

When using SATA, be sure to set the hard disk as master as directed on the paper sheet that came with the motherboard.

On the normal IDE port, be sure to properly configure your hard disks as master and slave.

Oh, and the is no side for jumpers, they just make contact between the 2 pins.

The thing is, I just installed the new mobo, reformatted, used it for a few days, installed a new heatsink and blamo!, no hard drive. No change of jumpers at all, even tried different ide cables (both ATA100 and ATA33) on different channels... even in a different computer.

Drive was dead.

I have the same problem with one of my Maxtor hard drives. One day after a fresh XP install, the drive decides to lock up my computer at the 'Detecting IDE devices' screen. Now that HD won't work in any computer..

I'm beginning to wonder if the NF7-S is killing hard drives. I am seeing a few of these posts around lately. Are we all running the 1.4 bios? I am.

e laursen said:

I'm beginning to wonder if the NF7-S is killing hard drives. I am seeing a few of these posts around lately. Are we all running the 1.4 bios? I am.

Click to expand...

Nah, it's because when you change you're mobo, reinstalling everything stress the hard disk.

When I got my previous motherboard (an MSI K7N420 Pro, good board), my IBM 75GXP 45 Gig decided to "loose" a plater... it became a 30 Gig ! I'm sure the IBM support guy must have been surprise when I told him there software was reporting my 45 gig HD to be a 30 gig and that it wasn't finding any problem with it ! I RMA it and go my current noisier 60 gig (at least it's faster).

I will never buy an IBM again... oh wait the sold the HD departement... 75GXP are POS... too bad the line was so popular...

yeha i had the same problem, but i think it was one of my CD drives, because when i unplug one it works fine, but now i just bought 2 brand new LG drives (see sig) and it seems to be working fine.... how strange...

i get this problem when i dont set the mps back to what it was when i installed my os

What is mps?

according to here it multi processor spec. it in your bios under advanced bios stuff

i do find this to be weird that its on a single cpu board