Showstopper RTVPatch problem

[rjj]

I was trying to reimage a friend's Showstopper yesterday and ran into trouble. (The unit had been in storage for a while and can no longer connect to the mother ship.) I first tried using my friend’s original drive, and fired up RTVPatch 2.4. When his drive didn’t show up as a possible selection, I thought that perhaps the drive was defective, so I dug up one of my old 30GB drives. Before starting RTVPatch this time, I checked in Windows Explorer, and this drive, which had previously been used on a Windows PC, was recognized and accessible. However, RTVPatch again did not offer this drive as a Source or Target option. Any ideas as to what I’m doing wrong?

The system I was doing this on is a Dell 8400 that has a 160GB SATA as the primary master (which is the only drive that appeared as a selection option in RTVPatch), and a DVD-ROM (master) and the old 30GB drive (slave) on an IDE cable.

Thanks.

Roy

[mhargr03]

Why don't you try setting the drive to master and putting it on the master (end) of the IDE cable?

[l8er]

Try the drive on a cable by itself (without the DVD-ROM drive).

[rjj]

OK, thanks guys. I will give that a try when I get home tonight. Is the inability to recognize the slave in this type of configuration a known RTVPatch issue?

Roy

[l8er]

Originally posted by rjj
Is the inability to recognize the slave in this type of configuration a known RTVPatch issue? No, but a CD/DVD drive on the same cable could cause problems. If the CD/DVD drive is jumpered as master, then the hard drive should be jumpered as slave (and vice versa). If they're both jumpered to cable select, it shouldn't cause a problem. If you've already checked and tried different jumper settings then it may be some incompatibility between the CD/DVD drive and the hard drive.

A few years back I encountered some brands of hard drives that didn't like playing together with other brands of drives on the same IDE cable in a master/slave configuration. I wouldn't be surprised to find CD/DVD drives that produce the same problem.

[rjj]

Well, I know for a fact that I jumpered the hard drive as slave. I didn't touch the DVD-ROM drive, so it's jumpered the way that Dell shipped it.

Roy

[Murphy]

If Dell set the DVD-ROM drive to cable select, that would explain why you can't see the hard disk. Master/Slave and Cable Select are mutually exclusive configuration methods.

[rjj]

Keep in mind, that I see the hard drive just fine in Windows Explorer......it's just in the upper portion of RTVPatch, where you select the Target drive, that it does not appear.

[rjj]

An update........

Removing my DVD-ROM and setting the jumper on my test (Windows) hard drive to Master didn't make it visible to RTVPatch......but setting the jumper to Single did. I then replaced the test drive with the old Replay hard drive (on the Master setting, as it did not have a Single setting), and the reimaging went just fine.

Thanks for the help!!

Roy

[mhargr03]

Drives in 5xxx machines have to be set back to cable select once they are put back in. I am not sure about Showstoppers but keep this in mind if it doesn't work when you pop it back in your unit...

[rjj]

Well, it was originally set to Master, so that's what I put it back as. It fired up just fine!