# [SOLVED] Primary IDE Channel, no 80 conductor cable detected...



## babcockdonald (Nov 15, 2007)

Here are my system specs. It is an old machine that has been running stable with no issues for almost 2 years.

Biostar M7NCD Motherboard
1 GB Corsair PC2700 RAM
AMD 2500+ Barton Core (non o/c)
350 watt power supply (can't remember the brand off the top of my head)
Nvidia GeForce 6600 LE (AGP 8X)
40 GB Seagate 7200 rpm HDD (Primary IDE with no slave with a known good 80 conductor cable)
DVD ROM (secondary IDE master)
CDRW (secondary IDE slave)
Floppy drive
Windows XP Home sp 2

About 3 weeks ago attempted to turn on my computer and kept getting a message saying "Primary IDE Channel, no 80 conductor cable detected" then it would try to boot from both optical drives and then exit the boot sequence saying something like boot failure, check cable.

I have checked in the bios and the HDD doesn't show up at all. I've switched cables and the HDD still doesn't show up, but both the optical drives and the floppy drive show up.

I haven't tried the HDD on the secondary IDE channel yet, but I was wondering if there was a way that I could test and see if it is the HDD or the MB. I'm hoping it isn't the MB because it is nearly impossible to find a socket A MB anymore that isn't a piece of junk.


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## manic (Aug 2, 2005)

*Re: Primary IDE Channel, no 80 conductor cable detected...*

Unplug the secondary ide cable from the board, then plug your cable
in that has the hdd, see what happens, if it boots fine you know the
drive is ok and you have a board issue. You did say you replaced ide
cable, and installed it with the #1 pin on the cable on the #1 pin 
on the drive,? You may have to go in bios and set secondary ide
to auto, so it detects the drive.


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## babcockdonald (Nov 15, 2007)

*Re: Primary IDE Channel, no 80 conductor cable detected...*

Yeah, brand new cable was put in 2 days ago to double check and it does the same thing.

I'll disconnect the 2 optical drives from the second channel and see what the HDD does on that channel. I'm really hoping it isn't a MB issue as the only socket A board I can find is a real crappy PCChips board that about half the people on newegg have had to return because it was DOA. I really don't want to spend the money on upgrading, but will if I have to. This has been a really stable and good gaming rig (mostly rpg's and the ocassional fps, but nothing online. DIAL UP SUCKS!!!).

I'll test things out after my MMA class tonight and get back with the results.


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## babcockdonald (Nov 15, 2007)

*Re: Primary IDE Channel, no 80 conductor cable detected...*

Well, I got my rig back up and running at least for now. Not sure how long it will last though. Not trying to be pesimistic, but I'm not holding my breath with this thing being fully fixed.

What I did tonight was remove the two optical drives from IDE 2 and then hooked up the HDD on IDE 2. BIOS saw the drive as a slave on IDE 2 even though the drive was plugged into the master part of the cable and was set up for cable select.

I put the jumpers to master and checked again and it wouldn't see the drive. Put the jumper back to cable select and then it saw it as the master on IDE 2. Shut down and tried it on IDE 1 and it saw the drive and started windows.

Shut down again and hooked the optical drives back up on IDE 2 with the HDD on IDE 1, and everything was detected and windows loaded. went through a few shut downs/boots and everything seems to be working.

I'll see how things go for the next few days. Very wierd problem and what I did shouldn't have changed\fixed anything.


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## manic (Aug 2, 2005)

*Re: Primary IDE Channel, no 80 conductor cable detected...*

Stranger things have happened, lol. Probably be ok, be sure to knock
on some wood.


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## babcockdonald (Nov 15, 2007)

*Re: Primary IDE Channel, no 80 conductor cable detected...*

Ran all last night even after shutting down and restarting a few times during automatic updates. I'll definetely knock on some wood to help keep this old dog running.

Thanks for the help.


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