Having some problems with cdrom, dvd-rw, and the bios

Basel · 11-08-2006, 10:39 AM

The BIOS cannot detects my CD-Rom drive and DVD-RW drive properly when the system boots. Only one of them get detected and sometimes none. This continues to happen even though I cleared the system configuration data by clearing the CMOS jumper.

Motherboard: K8N Neo2 ATX for AMD64
IDE Secondary Master: Gigabyte DVD Writer
IDE Secondary Slave: Samsung CD Reader

The_Outlander · 11-08-2006, 09:47 PM

Have you updated the bios recently. I have an K8N Pro and it was problematic with the detection of newly installed hardware (namely memory) until I updated the bios.

Basel · 11-25-2006, 09:41 AM

How did you update/flash the bios? Did you use any utility?

hansalfredche · 11-25-2006, 11:55 AM

1. Find out mainboard manufacturer, model (you already seem to have this two) and BIOS version of your system (should be displayed at boot)
2. Go to the homepage of your mainboard manufacturer
3. Find the BIOS for your mainboard (exact model!) and follow instructions, if a newer version is avaible.

Basel · 11-26-2006, 05:09 AM

I did that already. The reason I asked you is because the instructions suggest that I use a floppy drive and an executable, which seems to be for Windows. Some sites suggests using FreeBIOS or OpenBIOS, I thought you used one of them so that is why I am asking about your experience.
I'm sorry if my English sounds weird.

hansalfredche · 11-26-2006, 05:58 AM

OK, so now it depends if you must do a boot floppy or not. If the former is the case you should be able to find either an Windows (old Win 9x is fine) machine and format the floppy or use Freedos/image of DOS boot floppy. I'm absolutely not familiar with the second, so I can't help. Then you can copy the files on the floppy and proceed as manufacturer says.

If the BIOS update is a Windows executable, you are stuck. If you like taking risks you can try it on Wine, but keep in mind that this can damage your mainboard. I succeded updating Firmware of a CD-burner with it, but it can fail just as well.

Note: That FreeBIOS/OpenBIOS stuff is not very mature yet. In this case you can probably just as well try updating using Wine.

Basel · 11-26-2006, 06:07 AM

Okay thanks , I will try updating using a CD since I don't have a floppy drive ;p

hansalfredche · 11-26-2006, 07:22 AM

Good luck, don't forget to make the CD bootable!