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I am using a P4 system with Win XP Professional. I have a 40 GB harddisk connected as primary master, a CD RW/DVD combo drive connected as primary slave and a CD ROM drive connected as secondary slave.

The problem I face is that when I get into Windows after a hibernation or standby mode, my CD ROM drive doesn't appear in My Computer or elsewhere. The problem does not occur when Windows boots up normally.

Also my CD ROM drive does not appear in the boot device priority selection menu of my BIOS. Can't a secondary slave be used for booting? Please explain the significance of the classification primary/secondary master/slave. What are ATAPI and SCSI drives?

Dileep

ATAPI (AT Attachment Packet Interface) is a storage device interface. It means it is a standard/methodology for connecting storage devices with the PC.

If you look inside your PC, you will find that your hard disk, CD-ROM drives, or any storage device will connect to a connector on the motherboard which is widely known as IDE and EIDE but the real names for these connectors/interface are ATA and ATAPI.

SCSI (Small Computer System Interface), on the other hand, is a generalised device interface that defines the structure of commands and the way they must be processed. SCSI uses many types of physical interfaces to connect and one among them is ATAPI.

Now regarding `Master' and `Slave' channels in the IDE interface, there are basically two IDE connectors available in a typical PC.

The first connecter IDE 0 is the `Primary' connector and the other is IDE 1 is the `Secondary' connector. Each connector can connect two devices each, one as `Master' and another as `Slave' so typically you can connect four devices in all, with two on each connector.

The Primary connector (IDE 0) can have two devices `Primary Master' and `Primary Slave' and the Secondary connector IDE 1 can have two devices, `Secondary Master' and `Secondary Slave'.

All the Master and Slave hierarchy is used to specify or ordain some kind of priority of access for each device attached.

For instance, the boot device or the device which holds the OS is set as the Primary Master so that it has the highest priority available because it is the device typically running the OS, and a CD-ROM drive is typically connected as a Slave.

So all these settings are for setting a priority structure through the ATAPI standard.

Now coming to your problem of CD-ROM drive, the possible reason why your ROM drive letter disappeared after a standby is because it did not respond to a wakeup call from the OS in the stipulated time, and the OS simply marked the device as offline and amputated the related drive letter.

This may be due to a number of reasons, primarily your device might be experiencing a hardware problem which might be internal or because of a bad connector at the ROM end. You can try the following steps, one after the other.

First, connect your CD-ROM drive as `Secondary Master' by removing the Jumper, next you can connect your DVD combo drive in place of your CD-ROM drive and see if you still have the same trouble.

If so, please try replacing the IDE ribbon cable/Data cable (the flat cable connecting the ROM and the main-board) with a new one, preferably an 80 Pin connector.

Floppy usage

I recently downloaded and saved a couple of your computer usage articles on a brand new Imation floppy. The floppy opens nicely only on the computer where it was downloaded. When I tried to open the floppy on my computer, I noticed the following problems:

1. The floppy opens belatedly with the message `this disk is not formatted, do you want to format it now'.

2. A similar message is received when that floppy is inserted into other computers also.

Please suggest a solution to open the floppy easily in other computers also and please let me know why such a problem arises in the first place. I always buy floppies in sealed packs from reputed dealers.

I have two XP-PRO operating systems in C and E drives. The O/S in C drive appears to be corrupt. I wish to totally erase the XP from C drive and retain only the O/S loaded in E drive. How do I do it with the help of O/s of E drive?

R. Sameeran

This is a known issue with Windows XP. The problem, technically, as described by MS is that the disk does not contain a media descriptor byte in the BIOS parameter block (BPB) of the boot sector.

This simply means that the disk is not in the format that XP expects it to be and that is why it throws this error. The older OS's Win 95/98 do not require to have this `descriptor' in place so you will not have a problem accessing the same disk in older OS. MS suggests that you re-format the disk with any Windows OS to bring the disk to the required format.

Typically format the disk in the system to which you are copying the data for, this does solve the problem many a time, for reasons unknown.

Now regarding removing of XP OS from the C drive, all you have to do is to delete the Windows installation directory, which typically will be `C:\Windows' from the C drive.

Additionally, you need to delete the `C:\Program files' folder also as this will contain the default XP installed applications such as the Accessories and other common files of the XP OS in the C drive.

Before deleting you need to verify that you have not installed any programs of the XP OS in E drive into C:\Program Files.

If you have not done this, then you have to leave out the related programs folder and delete only the rest of the program folders.

Finally you will find the `Paging File' of the XP OS in the C drive as c:\pagefile.sys, which you can delete.

It is a hidden file so you will have to select `Show hidden files and folder' in Folder Options to see this file.

Now your system is relieved of the XP OS on the C drive, but the entry in the boot.ini file is still there, so you will still have two OS menu displayed when the system starts.

You will have to edit the c:\boot.ini file and remove the entry pointing to the C: installation. To do this, please open the boot.ini in notepad.

Assuming you have only one hard disk connected in your system you will find a line reading `multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect'

Delete this line and save the file. Remember there will be another similar line reading `multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect' which is for the XP installation in the E drive.

This should be left undisturbed. Otherwise the system will fail to boot.

Solutions by G. Rajah

Please e-mail us at eworld@thehindu.co.in if you have queries on computer usage or if you find an interesting way of using a computer.

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