cd and dvd drive not found after disk clone

I cloned my old hard drive onto a new one using Acronis true image 11.
The new hard drive boots up ok and all data seems to be ok however my cd and dvd drive no longer show up under my computer, device manager or the bios.
I have checked all cable and power connections.
Both drive trays open, close and load disks but that is it.
Windows xp SP3

 

This is not an Acronis issue. This is a hdwe and/or BIOS issue.

Recheck the cables.

Check the bios to make sure the controllers are set to automatic. If both on the same cable, it could be the cable

Since you were inside the case to replace the drive, something is probably loose or not properly configured.

Remove the connectors and reseat them again. There is a slight chance the connect to Motherboard may be loose or in backwards.

 

I agree with Grover (as usual .

You might try connecting only one of the drives to simplify the situation.

Until the drives show up in the BIOS setup screen, they won't exist for Windows or the Rescue CD.

 

checked bios settings and have 2 new cables connecting hard drive and cd with dvd -same results.

 

Would you mind explaing how the drives are connected. What is primary or secondary and which is slave or master or sata, etc.

Are the optical drives on a cable by themselves or are then on a cable with a hard drive, etc.

 

My old and new hard drive are on cable select, only new hard drive is connected by itself to motherboard.
I have a separate cd and dvd drive sharing a cable connected to a seperate point on the motherboard.
All devices are IDE.
The new hard drive shows up fine-maxtor 320GB, but it boots up slow.
The cd and dvd drives are in the original factory positions and are not connected to the hard drive.
At this point I am trying to get the cd rom drive working so I can do a fresh install of linux and dump windows-

 

Remove the cd/dvd connector from the motherboard and examine the pins very carefully. Perhaps you have a bent pin. Connector must be very firmly attached.

Since neither the optical devices appear, this leads me to want to check the connection from the ribbon to the motherboard.

You have checked that Secondary controller is set to auto?

I am assuming that the hard drives is the Primary controller.

There should be no difference in the bootup speed between the two hard drives. Perhaps the delay is being caused by the cd/dvd problem.

I assume you have run errorchecking on the 320 disk.

 

The connection to motherboard is OK-no bent pins.
Hard drive connected to primary, cd and dvd drive connected to secondary and checked that it was set to auto.
Installed new cable for hard drive and cd/dvd drives.
I ran another check disk and it came back "recovering orphaned file MTK.SYS (10001) into directory file 31", the rest of the scan came out OK.
I still can't detect the cd or dvd drive.
I connected my old hard drive in the external usb housing and I can access it ok.
Also if I plug in an external floppy drive it gets detected fine.

 

Do you have any Windows Restore Points you can try?

 

You could temporarily switch connectors so that the hard drive is secondary and the cd-dvd is primary.

If the cd-dvd is not recognized, perhaps its time to try a new optical device.

Or switch connecor postitions between the cd and dvd devices but that would require a jumper setting change on both.

If the hard drives are not recognized with the switch to secondary, then the secondary controller may not be working and you will need to replace with a pci card

 

All good stuff.

Here's an easy test.

Since you have the old hard drive, put it on the secondary cable alone instead of the two optical drives. If it is recognized, then one or both optical drives are the problem. If it isn't recognized in the BIOS, the cable is bad or the Secondary IDE port isn't working.

 

I disconnected my cd and dvd drive. I then connected my old hard drive with a new cable to the secondary IDE port and it was not detected.
The secondary IDE shows up in device manager as working ok.

 

You are saying that it is the Bios that is not showing anything on this device during the first 5 seconds of bootup when all the devices/hard drives are displayed?

Make sure the old hard drive is jumpered as Master with no slave.
and retry the test.

If the drive is not recognized and your Bios is set properly,
then I believe the port connection is bad.

Another test would be to attach the CD/DVD to the primary controller and see if the optical device is recognized.

If this were Windows not recognizing the devices, I would have you un-install the secondary IDE controller within the Device Mgr.

 

It's sure beginning to sound like the second IDE port has failed.

You might change the settings in the BIOS for that port and then put them back again, or restore the default settings and see if that helps.

 

I also have a floppy drive showing up in device manager but none installed.And I had a floppy drive show up under my computer but it had no properties and then went away.
I have no cd or dvd showing up in device manager.
The bios is set to auto for all ide.
What do I do for a bad port?
All worked fine before I cloned the disk.

 

I do not believe there is any relationship between the cloning and your problems. It would seem your problems are BIOS problems.

What were the results of your connecting the CD to the primary controller?

I suggest you get your computer serviced at a tech shop.

My next step would be to flash the BIOS--perhaps with an update--if one available. There is high risk in doing so. Write down your settings before taking any action.

You could also return the BIOS settings to their default. Write down your settings before taking any action.
Modified extract from post #10: If the hard drives are not recognized when connected to the secondary controller, then the secondary controller may not be working and you will need to replace with a pci hard drive controller card. Card Cost $25-$50

 

Well I did a fresh install of windows xp using my existing hardware I was having trouble with and guess what? All hardware was detected 100% that was not with the Acronis disk clone!
Not to mention that I emailed Acronis customer support more than 7 days ago and never received a response.
I will never use Acronis products again.
Thank you for all the blind sided help.

 

mjo,

This happened to one of my computers recently. Just out of the blue. A registry edit fixes it. Sorry you had to install Windows. I doubt it had anything to do with Acronis TI. Mine didn't as TI wasn't on that computer.

http://aumha.org/regfiles.htm

See.. "Restore Missing CD Drive. Win XP ONLY!"

I can't remember if I uninstalled burning software before noticing the problem but I had been cleaning up the computer and removing programs. I knew the CD drives were OK as they worked in DOS. But not in Windows.


PS.... Also

http://www.dougknox.com/xp/scripts_desc/xp_cd_dvd_fix.htm

 

Some PCs can do weird things when a drive is not working correctly, so it could be a bad optical drive. However, as Brian K notes, it could be driver prob/conflict. In any event, the likelihood of this beeing ATI related is miraculously small. More likely a prob with other sofware, the hardware, or the user. And those are three things I almost never say.

 

shieber,

It was my son's computer. It had two optical drives. Neither showed in My Computer, Disk Management or Device Manager. It resembled a computer without optical drives. They were shown correctly in the BIOS. I went through checking jumpers, reseating plugs etc. Uninstalling the secondary IDE channel and rebooting didn't help. Then I noticed I could boot from CDs so I searched Google and found the answer. This is the Registry fix.

mjo describes the same problem. He could not see his optical drives in Windows but he must have been able to boot from a CD as he reinstalled WinXP. He did mention not seeing the optical drives in the BIOS but that may be incorrect as he could open the trays in Windows and boot from a CD. (My trays opened too when I pressed the button)

 

My approach to fixing his problem was that the drive was not being seen by the Bios as he stated in his first posting. I should have realized he was providing mistaken information as the open/closing tray signifies. Thus my attempted help was of no value.

 

I think this is correct - sadly.

We asked for what was shown in the BIOS Setup screen and were told that nothing was visible. That's before Windows is loaded, so it has nothing to do with TI or Windows but only being given bad info.

Perhaps mjo didn't know how to get to the BIOS Setup or something like that because that's the only way I can explain the observations.

The optical drives were there in BIOS all along, but not in Windows due to the Registry error. Reinstalling Windows of course corrected the Registry errors, but it's a bit overkill.

The Registry patch would have fixed everything.

Oh well, this is why tech support by phone or email is so hard. You don't get told the correct information but get blamed for not solving the problem.

At least on this one, we found out the truth in the end, so it's more satisfying.

 

You say that you cannot see optical devices after connect the 320GB-hdd, right?
It's a problem with the mainboard and the bios.
Question: What motherboard do you have? And what for a current bios-version?
Then we can check whether there are problems with your hardware.

Make a test: Delete all partitions on the 320GB-hdd. Connect it to your MB. Are the optical devices visible? No? Why is Acronis responsible for this fault? There is no Acronis-software present...

Why? Because your hardware doesn't fit?

It is no reason to get upset

 

I gave up on the old pc,I had a local shop check it out and they could not find anything wrong? I did not trust it for saving any data so I sold it to someone who just wanted to surf the net and read email.I have a new pc, hard drive, fresh windows xp install and some of my old documents on the new one with an external usb hard drive.
I tried all the registry patches above before I resorted to a fresh xp install plus several others I found, none of them worked.
Has Acronis customer service improved?
I still have my old Acronis cd but I'm reluctant to use it.Do imaging backups work better than cloning?

 

No reply so I guess that's the end of Acronis for me. I won't install it on my new pc.
After reading some recent posts it seems I am not the only one with a "clone problem".
It's great to find out after you purchase a product that it might not do what was advertised to do.
Why doesn't Acronis have their own web support forum?