HD help

[Jim_Henson]

Ok, why would I get an I/O error, trying to run a new hard drive as a master?

Its got win 98 installed etc, has run as a master in another computer before, and works fine

It has been runnning as a slave on this computer till now.

 

[april-wine]

All this slave and master talk.......swoooooooooooon.....


Hiya Cheffie.....

 

[Jim_Henson]

Yeah, I'm already thinking I bought a permanent slave.... not that its a bad thing of course.

Say hi to sigh when you find her, and of course, hi yourself miss wine.

 

[HeavyStick]

make sure you have the correct cables, ATA66/100/133, you have the correct jumper settings. Are you sure you have the cable connected correctly?

 

[Weird Harold]

Ok, why would I get an I/O error, trying to run a new hard drive as a master?

Its got win 98 installed etc, has run as a master in another computer before, and works fine

It has been runnning as a slave on this computer till now.

Most probable causes:

You have the jumpers set wrong -- if the drive is newer than tenyears old, it should have the jumper settings printed on it. If they aren't, the manufacturer's website should have them.

You have the cable connected wrong -- the colored stripe (indicating pin 1) usually goes closest to the power plug. Make sure you have both rows of pins engaged -- some drives will let you plug the cable in with only half of the pins engaged.

Make sure the motherboard end of the cable hasn't been pulled loose during installation of the drive. Ribbon cables are relatively fragile, and you may have caused a short in manipulating it to remove and replace the drives.

Double check the power plug to the drive to insure that all four pins are fully seated and one hasn't pushed back into the plug.


If you can't find an obvious solution, try a new ribbon cable.

 

[Jim_Henson]

None of the above WH, and the ribbon cable will run the other one as master and the other as slave not a problem, any other ideas?

 

[HeavyStick]

run a scan of the entire drive

 

[Jim_Henson]

Ok, I'm hazy... it works fine, always has, what would a scan turn up?

 

[HeavyStick]

dead sectors, bad blocks, defects with cylinders and heads.

 

[Jim_Henson]

I meant in reference to master problems.

The computer it previously mastered was a Pentium II 500, and attempting to now master a Pentium 200.

 

[HeavyStick]

will the BIOS support it?

has the BIOS been updated?

How large is the HD?

some MB's can't handle a certain size drive.

 

[Jim_Henson]

I'm not sure... but if it will run as a slave you would think so.

Unknown what the bios would additionally support, or need to. No Bios updates, its a 40 gig.

Everything would make sense if it refused to let it slave in the beginning...

 

[HeavyStick]

the chip speed shouldn't matter.

The mother board can be sensitive about such changes.

What size was the previous master drive?

a friend at work had a similar problem, he solved it by resizing the partition on the disk to the size of the original master.

 

[Jim_Henson]

Previous Master was a 4 gig...

THe scan came up dead clean too.

 

[HeavyStick]

it's possible the bios won't let it run, is the BIOS capable of supporting it?

What does the manufacturer say?

 

[Jim_Henson]

I'll rip it apart and check it later tonight... would at least make the most sense

 

[Weird Harold]

None of the above WH, and the ribbon cable will run the other one as master and the other as slave not a problem, any other ideas?

If the drive has been running as a slave drive, it probably has a corrupt "master boot record."

Can you access the drive as C: when you boot from a floppy?

Is there data on this drive you want to preserve?

Are you resetting the other drive to slve when you change this one to master?

Will this drive boot up as a solo drive?

Some drives just won't run as Slave drives to another brand, and some individual drives have quirks that make them incapable of running in a two drive system in one position or the other regardless of brand.

You may have to repartition and reformat both drives to get them to work in the configuration you want, but it's difficult totroubleshoot this sort of problem without getting "hands-on." Taking it to a computer shop and explaining what configuration you want is probably the best solution.

 

[Guest]

 

[DéjàNu]

It could be because of how you have orginally format your HD.. there is some "problems" (FAT32 and/or NTFS) occuring because of formatting compatible with differents versions of Windows. Before doing anything drastic (like reformat) you might want to intall Windows XP... it might work... or not...

Another idea, you might try to flash your BIOS.

 

[Draco]

It could be because of how you have orginally format your HD.. there is some "problems" (FAT32 and/or NTFS) occuring because of formatting compatible with differents versions of Windows. Before doing anything drastic (like reformat) you might want to intall Windows XP... it might work... or not...

Another idea, you might try to flash your BIOS.

Installing XP wont help it any. If it wont boot, it WONT BOOT.
Doing an XP install will do nothing but waste 2 1/2 hours on a Pentuim 200.

40 Gig HDD's are ATA 100, make sure the MASTER HDD is plugged into the GREY connector in the middle of the cable, (not the black one at the SLAVE end or the blue or red connector at the MOBO end)

Make sure the jumpers are set to Master.

Try booting it from a start-up disk and type Fdisk/MBR at the DOS (A:>) prompt, that should fix any MBR errors.

DO NOT Flash the BIOS unless you are absolutley sure there is no other cure. If you get that wrong, its a dead board.

Good Luck Jim. You know you can call me if all else fails.

 

[Jim_Henson]

Check check check, blah blah blah.. I even thought of the master thing being in the middle of the ribbon cord.

It seems I will have to BIOS flash because it wont run XP otherwise anyway.. or take the 40 as a master (In which case, I was doing one in case the other doesnt work)

I've found the right flash program with the right string codes...

Now it asks me for the file name to program... and this I have no idea about.

 

[Weird Harold]

Now it asks me for the file name to program... and this I have no idea about.

The file required to flash your BIOS to the most current version has to be obtained from the manufacturer's website -- make a note of the filename when you download it.

I really don't think you need to flash the bios. If the drive in question will run as a slave drive -- the BIOS doesn't care whether a drive is master or slave except to distinguish between drive0 and drive1. If it can handle the drive in one position, it will handle it in the other just as well.

Dumb question: Are you changing the drive parameters in the BIOS when you swap the positions? If you aren't you'll get exactly the symptoms you're reporting.

Before you try to boot the system, enter the bios and make sure that the drive parameters for drive0 and drive1 match the drive you have configured in those positions. (Drive0 is the master, Drive1 is the slave.)

 

[Jim_Henson]

They autodetect the drives in the master/slave spots....

I have the upadte file, but it asks me to put in the original filename to be modified.

 

[Unclebill]

Originally posted by Jim_Henson
I meant in reference to master problems.

The computer it previously mastered was a Pentium II 500, and attempting to now master a Pentium 200.

Was the drive taken from one computer and dropped into the other with no changes to the OS? If so, the problem might be related to drivers for the mainboard because, being master on the other system, the drivers for that mainboard and associated video cards and other peripherals were installed.

If you try to boot it on this systm, those drivers may be the source of your conflicts and hence the problem.

Since you say it works as a slave, this makes some sense because as a slave, these drivers and the installed OS never come into play; they only become a factor when the drive is master and hence the OS boot source.

Originally posted by Weird Harold
...Dumb question: Are you changing the drive parameters in the BIOS when you swap the positions? If you aren't you'll get exactly the symptoms you're reporting.

Before you try to boot the system, enter the bios and make sure that the drive parameters for drive0 and drive1 match the drive you have configured in those positions. (Drive0 is the master, Drive1 is the slave.)

If the BIOS setting is AUTO, it should occur automatically. Does the BIOS recognition give the correct parameters?

 

[Jim_Henson]

I thought of that Uncle Bill, and it is a possibility that I'd look into, but how can I fix it if I cant turn it to master to get it to boot?



Yeah the Bios gives the correct parameters.