DVD Writer not found

[Church of Noise]

Just bought a new computer and I have a tiny problem: the 'activity' led of the dvd writer is constantly on, but it isn't found in the BIOS and pushing the eject button doesn't work. I checked the cables and they seem to be attached as they should be.
The system has of a Asus P5W DH mainboard and previously, when the floppy drive wasn't installed, the DVD writer was working.

Can anybody tell me what's wrong here?

Edited by Church of Noise on Friday 11th August 08:18

[onedsla]

Jumper settings on the drive?

[aldi]

Deffo sounds jumper-y to me, cables are keyed these days.

That said

Where did you buy it from? You need to weigh up the hassle of taking the sides off and faffing around vs. ringing them up and getting them to sort it..

[scorp]

Activity LED constantly on sounds like a master/slave problem (ive seen this many times myself).. check your bios and see what IDE peripherals it 'sees'.

[SlidingSideways]

Church of Noise said:

when the floppy drive wasn't installed, the DVD writer was working.

If you unplug the data cable from the back of the floppy, does it work again?
If it does, try swapping the data cable in the back of the floppy drive round.

If that doesn't work, definitely sounds like your master slave settings on the DVD and any other drives you've got.

J

[thepassenger]

Church of Noise said:

Just bought a new computer and I have a tiny problem:

It's new and under waranty. Don't open the side, this can and will invalidate your waranty in some cases.
Call them up and tell them "It's knakkered. Come fix."
If it's a big OEM the helpdesk will have you run through some diagnostics/scripted repairs and ultimatley come to the conclusion it's broken. A local box shifter will probably tell you to drop in with it.

[Church of Noise]

Solved it: apparently, the date cable was broken.

Thanks for the advice!