Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Retro System with Hard Drive Recognition Problems

by acoxon1274 Jun 21, 2006 11:26PM PDT

200 MHz P55C Intel Pentium MMX CPU, 64Mb SIMM 72pin EDO RAM, Asus SP97-V motherboard,Win98se OS, 245watt AT power supply, 2 Western Digital 2.5Gb & 8Gb(8Gb partitioned into 4 logic drives) hard drives, Sony CDROM drive, AT mini-tower case, 5.25 & 3.5 floppy drives, ISA modem, PCI S3 Stealth V64 video card, and a ISA SB16 sound card. Put this system together by parting out of 3 win95 based computers. System will be used for retro games, Office 97 applications, out-going email, and faxing. I have the system running stable, that means restarts from win98 shut down menu cause freeze on shut down screen and soft boot during startup(pre windows loading) cause freeze. I configured the hard drives to be on the same primary IDE cable, 0 as master, 1 as slave, and put the CDROM on its own secondary cable as a slave. The system would boot showing the drives as present and working on the next boot the slave drive failed to be recognized. The pattern was hard drives okay, good boot, and the next boot, bad boot, un-recognized slave drive with reduced computer speed. I re-configured the CDROM to be on the same primary IDE cable as the master hard drive, and put the slave drive on its own secondary cable. The boot with un-recognized slave hard drive went away and the system is stable. What is going on here? Why can?t I get a stable system with the hard drives located on the same IDE cable?

Discussion is locked

6 Posts
- Collapse + Expand Details
- Collapse -
2 things.
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jun 22, 2006 12:05AM PDT

1. This was a known issue with some older systems. The cause was most commonly tracked down to a BIOS issue. See if you can find if it has been updated.

2. Another trick I use is to use 80 conductor cables and follow the jumper rules to the letter. There are some that will try non-standard jumpering ideas but I leave them to experiment.

Bob

- Collapse -
Reply to 2 things--- >Is this a fix?
by acoxon1274 Jun 22, 2006 9:48AM PDT

I will check on the BIOS version and update if I need to.

I will try the 80 wire cable.

Is this a fix? On top of the WD 8Gb drive (jumpered as slave) there is a note about if used with a 2Gb drive a special jumper settings maybe needed and the diagram shows an additional jumper placed on the pins beside the slave pins. I?ll get the drive model numbers and see if WD has any info on this.

- Collapse -
YOUR BIGGEST PROBLEM............................
by Scrotes4Life Jun 24, 2006 10:46AM PDT

Get rid of Windows 98 - unless your that nostalgic. Worn-out W98 installation CDs will cause this because you never get a clean reinstall.
The exact same thing happened to me.
Also, reconfigure your jumpers to original setups.
Just how old is that CPU?

- Collapse -
Yes but
by acoxon1274 Jun 28, 2006 2:03AM PDT

Well it shipped with Win95 & Win3.1 drivers. My guess is 1997 date of manufacture. It was a Win95 system when I got it(donated as a pen2, later learned it was a pen MMX). I put in a used drive, just to see if the system worked at all. 5 years later, fix or part out time. So I?m rebuilding it as Retro System. I couldn?t get a stable system with the additional drive in the location I wanted. I pulled the drives out I found a black jumper (not visible while drive was in computer) as well as the white jumper I installed to set the drive to master. I decided to use the 80 wire cable because I wanted to see if it would work. I pulled the jumper off and re-installed the drives using the 80 wire IDE cable. The drives are working fine now and seem quieter. The system is stable.

As to the use of win98se, I can?t install ME because the CPU is below 250 MHz. I have a Linux live CD I will try, but if you can think of another OS please feel free to post.

- Collapse -
Reply to 2 things-----> I have solved the problem
by acoxon1274 Jun 27, 2006 11:58PM PDT

I have resolved the problem,thanks to you. I decided to use an 80 wire cable instead of the 40 wire IDE cable, as you indicated. When I pulled the drives out I found a black jumper (not visible while drive was in computer) as well as the white jumper I installed to set the drive to master. The additional jumper must have been from previous installation of the drive in another computer where the alternate jumper setting was needed. I pulled the jumper off and re-installed the drives using the 80 wire IDE cable. The drives are working fine now and seem quieter.

- Collapse -
Tadah!
by r. proffitt Forum moderator Jun 28, 2006 12:19AM PDT

You gotta say it or the magic won't stick.

Thanks for the report back and best of continued self made luck.

Bob

Back to Desktops forum

CNET Forums

Operating Systems
Software
Electronics & Gadgets
Hardware
Tablets & Mobile Devices
General Help
Brand Forums
Roadshow Autos
Off Topic

Other Forums

Forum Info