LG lightscribe DVD rewriter help

[nerdy_waffle]

I have recently bought a (used) LG GSA-H22L super multi DVD Rewriter with lightscribe, the problem is that I'm pretty sure I hooked it up right (I'm new to adding hardware to computers, but it seemed pretty straight forward) but my computer doesn't detect it, either does some programs i downloaded, anybody have any ideas?

 

[deepskyblue]

I would check and see if the drive is listed when the computer posts at startup. If not you'd want to make sure that the SATA or IDE cable is pushed all the way in to the back of the drive and the motherboard. Also check to make sure the power cable is pushed in all the way. When your computer starts the light on the front of the drive should be blinking if it's plugged in.

Depending on how old your system is (and if the drive you're installing is SATA) I've seen some older motherboards where SATA needs to be enabled in the bios. When you're starting up it usually prompts you to press delete or one of the "F" keys to enter setup, this is your bios. Be careful in here there are many settings you wouldn't want to change. But if you're in there and you see something in there relating to drives and SATA drives in you can try changing the options. Make sure you remember the original setting in case your computer doesn't boot to after you save a change. It seems like most boards have an option to restore factory defaults if you change a setting and aren't able to remember the correct ones. Still though, be careful.

 

[nerdy_waffle]

deepskyblue I checked and all the cables are plugged in all the way, in bios I can only find my original CD reader burner (at least I think it is as it still works) and the green power light on the front of my new (to me) DVD burner does come on and flash when I power on the computer, but still nothing detects it.

 

[deepskyblue]

Question 1: Okay is your new drive SATA or IDE? SATA is smaller, thin, usually colored cable. IDE is ribbon cable, it's thin, grey and really wide. It looks like ribbon.

Question 2: What are the other Drives in your system? Is you hard drive IDE or SATA? Is your old CD burner IDE or SATA?

If you don't see it in the bios you motherboard isn't recognisizing the drive so there is no way windows or any programs would recognise it.

 

[nerdy_waffle]

Its IDE then, its a thin. wide ribbon looking cable. the cable the connected my old burner had a second hookup on it so I used it. could this be the problem?

 

[cboucher]

Its IDE then, its a thin. wide ribbon looking cable. the cable the connected my old burner had a second hookup on it so I used it. could this be the problem?

If that's the case, you may want to check the jumpers on both optical drives. Either one should be set to Master and the other set to Slave or they both should be set to Cable Select (CS) since they are sharing a single data cable. You'll probably have more luck if you set one to Master and the other to Slave...

 

[detox1]

you could try and just hook up the new one by itself. see if it detects that way.

 

[cboucher]

you could try and just hook up the new one by itself. see if it detects that way.

Make sure you set the jumper to "Master or Single Drive" as opposed to "Master with Slave Present" if you go that route...

 

[nerdy_waffle]

evrybody thank you so much for all your help, but I figured it out, when I got into my computer to unplug my old CD burner I noticed that the end of the IDE cable going into my LG burner wasn't plugged in all that way on one side... man I feel stupid... i thought i checked them... *facepalms* thanks again.