ARBY!!! Did you ever have problems getting your HD working?

dudah85 · 06-11-2001, 06:11 PM

I've been trying forever to get my 20 gig hard drive working and whenever BIOS sees it, it locks up. I called the manufacturer and they said it couldn't handle more than 8 gig but an ATA-controller card would work. I got the card and it makes my computer not be able to start up!!!! It's VERY frustrating. I know that you have a 20 gig on a socket 7 so I'm just wondering if you had any problems such as the one I have and if you have any solutions. Thanks!

-Kev

Arby · 06-11-2001, 11:22 PM

I plugged it in and it worked fine...

I didn't have to mess with bios or anything. (and it's a super socket 7 mobo, it's newer, and has a 100 mhz bus)

My suggestion would be to update the bios, but if the company says it can't do it...

Well, then I would suggest getting and IDE card, but if that locks up the computer, well

um, anyone else?

Technics · 06-12-2001, 05:05 AM

There are drivers for IBM(Disk Manager 2000) and other drives that allow older systems to overcome the 8GB barrier. However, if your BIOS locks up detecting the drive you may have to enter the parameters manually and then install the drivers. The only downside to using the drivers is that you will most probably not be access this drive if it is placed in another machine(not much good if you plan to make the drive removable).

PaulzY · 06-12-2001, 12:35 PM

goto manufactures website, get setup disk for you correct hdd and info, you may beable to set the corretc number of heads, cylinders ect. in bios manually for it to recognise it all, or you may install i bios on your hdd that controles it the boot disk that you can get or make from files from manufactures webiste can do this for you.

This is caus your bios doesnt have any info on your hdd and is using some defaults i think.

if not maby you should check the partitions incase you have 8 gig patition and 12 gig free but i guess you have allready tried this

Aaron Cake · 06-13-2001, 09:37 AM

If using a controller card, it's best to disable your onboard controllers. Some motherboards can't handle three IDE controllers. Also, there may be a BIOS option that needs to be set to inform the motherboard of the presence of an external controller.

dudah85 · 06-13-2001, 06:27 PM

OK! I did the thing in BIOS and disabled all of the IDE ports and it works!...Sorta! It says starting windows 98, but then says that it needs a command interpereter. I booted it up on a different computer and it boots right to windows just fine. Here's what it says "Type the name of the COmmand Interpreter (e.g., C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND.COM)
A> " I type in c:\command.com and c:\windows\command.com and nothing works! Command.com is right in the c:\ root directory! Could it be that autoexec.bat or something thinks that it is located somewhere else or is a different file than the existing command.com? BLAH!!!!!! SO MUCH FRUSTRATION!!!! SO CLOSE TOO!! Thanks!

-Kev

mpt · 06-13-2001, 08:27 PM

Did you install Windows within this system (processor, board?) on the actual HD (20Gb)?. If not try installing Windows from scratch...

mpt

dudah85 · 06-13-2001, 10:51 PM

NUTS! It seems like it would work, i praise you for the good idea, but for some reason DOS can't see the partitions I put on it. When I load off of the boot disk, it loaded "the diagnostic tools" to virtual drive C. After that I hit my chair

. I tried doing format, fdisk and all of that but considering the computer is a wortheless.....i mean can't see the hard drive, it can't do anything about it. I think I'm read to try out linux now

bgoodman · 06-13-2001, 10:52 PM

what version of dos are you running?

dudah85 · 06-13-2001, 10:53 PM

Beats me, whatever version the boot disk of Win 98 V.2 is. I think its like 8.02 or something. I just use the DOS boot disk so I can get the windows install running.