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.

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?

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.

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

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.
:cool:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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"

Here's an experiment. Partition the drive and install
windows on an 8 gig (or smaller) partition.
If the problem goes away, you'll know that it
is a size issue and not a hardware problem.

You said that you're only running this drive
and a cdrom, so I presume that you have
each on its own cable, so it's not a cable
problem.
:cool:


I found some more info:

Quote:

---

All of the major hard drive manufacturers provide utility software that can accomplish the necessary LBA translations for very large hard drives. However, not all of these software solutions work with the Windows protected mode driver (ESDI_506.pdr). In some cases, the software drivers work only in real mode. This will reduce the speed of data transfer to and from the hard drive.

---

See the article here.

It sounds as though the "compatibility driver" mentioned in your
error message is the "real mode driver" spoken of in this
article. That would explain why it doesn't see the long file names.

Your drive is too big.
:cool:

The long file names thing was only when I got the CD-Rom working with the DOS drivers.
I have also apllied the fix from MS that is supposed to help with large drives, but it didn't help.
I was originally using the data lifeguard tools, however I removed them while trying to fix it. The problem WAS occuring while I was using the tools, however I'll try installing them again to see if it helps.
My BIOS reads the drive as around 30gigs I think, so I think it's at the 32GB limit mentioned in the article.
Also, how come it stops detecting my CD-Rom if only the hard drive has problems?

If all else fails, try one of two things:
1. Upgrade your OS. Since WinXP won't work on your computer, you choice is WinME. I know WinME is crap, but if it solves your problem....
2. If even that doesn't work, get your motherboard checked, it might have gone bad.

Cheers,
cgkanchi

XP will work, used it on a pII300(128Mb)
but is slohohohohow

so just try to d/l the latest bios update from your MB manufacturer..
I flashed my bios just to get my parport working in linux,
it accidentaly fixed an ASPI problem 2...

"Just a thought, but have you checked the rating of your power supply? "
I agree with darkes.. check your power supply. Lots of problems that happen slowly over time can be attributed to a dying PS. Don't worry about the file names with the DOS drivers returning to 8.3 naming rules this is expected. DOS drivers will usually not be able to recognize newer CD's. So like you said that's not an option. Keep us posted.

I also agree with the Power supply problem. As far as the size is concerned, win 98 is made to allow larger drives. I have a western digital 40 gig and it works fine with 98. Just make sure you use the datalifeguard bios setup utility and it shouldn't be a problem. Aslo make sure you check all your slave master, etc.. jumpers and your irq settings.. good luck

Actually, while swapping drives around and such in an attempt to fix the problem a few months ago, the machine stopped booting completely (didn't even POST). When we sent it in, the tech guys said it was some bad ram and replaced it, and the computer started working fine again. According to them, everything else was fine. I'll try reinstalling the lifeguard tools, hopefully they won't do anythong to LILO.