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Thread: Help! I've got a nasty IDE problem

  1. #1
    Senior Member
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    Unhappy Help! I've got a nasty IDE problem

    Okay, I'll start off by saying that my machine is a 400Mhz with 128 megs of ram running win98. My IDE cables plug directly into the motherboard.

    At christmas time (specifically boxing day), my dad went out and bought a new hard drive (80 gig compared to 6 gig ) and a CD-RW drive. After some fuddling around with the cabling ( he insisted on watching me and distracted me whilst I was putting in cables) I got the drives up and working. At this point, there were four IDE devices on the system. Due to the problem described below, I am now running with only the new hard drive and new CD-drive.

    The problem goes like this: After several successful bootups, I got a nasty little blue screen. It was rather verbose, but the jist of it is this: Intel Busmaster (I'm guessing that's what controls my IDE bus) has some child devices using compatibility mode drivers...I don't really remember much of what it said, but when I booted up, my CD-roms were no longer detected and there was a message in the system window that my two hard drives were using compatibility mode drivers. Anyway, I finally managed to get the CD-roms working using the DOS mode drivers, however the drivers had some nasty side effects, such as truncating names of files on the CD's. Ex. "Computer Probs.txt" becomes "comput~1.txt". It also caused most programs to not recognize CD's. So using the Dos mode drivers is not an option.

    I have tried numerous solutions, including fiddling with IDE drivers, including something from MS which is supposed to correct problems with large drives (BTW, windows reads the size of the large HD correctly), and I am almost completely sure that my jumper settings, cable connections and basic bios settings are correct.

    The one thing that has fixed it is reinstalling win98. However, several bootups later, the problem will return. Interestingly, the problem returned on the next bootup after setup with 4 drives, but with only 2 drives, the computer was fine for several reboots. I have already tried a complete format and reinstall, and the problem has still returned. It's almost certainly not a virus, either. I have run various virus scan programs several times and detected nothing.

    Well, I've rambled on for a while here, so I hope I've given enough information so that someone can help me out with this.
    Elen alcarin ar gwath halla ná engwar.

  2. #2
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    hmm....

    Here are a few suggestions....

    -Check the site of the make of the motherboard... there may be something screwy with the board (lemon?)
    -Purchase new IDE cables? It could be a pinch in the cable or something?
    -A weak battery may be causing some sorta problems?
    -Something wrong with the BIOS? (maybe also a battery thing?)
    -The order of the devices? What order are you placing them?

  3. #3
    Hi mom!
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    additional to tyger_claw's suggestions, download all updates that Windows Update has to offer. If I remember correctly, there is an update on IDE-drivers.
    I wish to express my gratitude to the people of Italy. Thank you for inventing pizza.

  4. #4
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    Hmmm, Check the jumpers on the hard drives to make sure they are set correctly.... The drive all the way at the end of the cable should be Master and the one closer to the board is slave.... Also try getting a HD controller

  5. #5
    AO Curmudgeon rcgreen's Avatar
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    Thumbs up

    I guess windows is telling you that it doesn't support this drive,
    and is using a default driver (compatibility driver) to access
    the device.
    Maybe there is a patch.

    Also, don't overlook settings in the BIOS having to
    do with LBA etc. There are different protocols for
    addressing a drive.

    I doubt if it is a cable or jumper configuration
    problem because if it were, you would never have
    been able to communicate with the drive to begin
    with.

    The fact that your long file names are gone tells me that the problem
    is in the OS, not the hardware.
    I came in to the world with nothing. I still have most of it.

  6. #6
    You might want to consider a BIOS upgrade. This might solve your problem, but this should be done at a last ditch attempt. Here is a resource which might help you:

    Motherboards.org

    Also, did you have to use the disk that came with the drive to install the HDD? I have always had bad luck with them.

    Let us know how it goes.

  7. #7
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    First off, I've already tried the mircosoft patch, as well as different cables. I've work with the BIOS a bit, but the fact that it was temporarily fixed by reinstalling the OS makes me think it's hardware. (Also, mandrake 8.1 doesn't seem to be having any problems with the drive)

    Edit/Update: Okay, I went to motherboards.com, got a utility to ID/check my BIOS, and downloaded some IDE drivers specific to my chipset. They didn't work. I've been playing around and have tried almost every BIOS setting that looks relevant, and still I've had no success.
    Elen alcarin ar gwath halla ná engwar.

  8. #8
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    Just a thought, but have you checked the rating of your power supply? It should be rated at something like 300W or so ...
    I assumed from your original post that you had added 2 new IDE devices to your system.
    This may be overloading your power supply, which would explain the sort of random events you have been seeing.

  9. #9
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    What brand of Hard Disk did you bought? Is it seagate, maxtor or wh4t? Do you still have your old HDD installed? Seagate & Fujitsu has a know incompatibility issue? Is it ATA 100? Check your mboard if it supports ATA 100.
    Listen closely to your enemies. They tell you your faults.

  10. #10
    Senior Member
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    At this point, I have only one CD-ROM and one hard drive installed (both are the new ones).
    The hard drive is a western digital enhacned IDE drive running in ATA/100 mode, which my motherboard is suppused to support (Intel 440BX chipset)
    The CD-RW drive is a 24x10x40 I/O Magic "MagicWriter"
    Elen alcarin ar gwath halla ná engwar.

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