gladders wrote:

I got this new motherboard today (revision 1). I've loaded it up with 512MB RAM and a Pentium III 450MHz, but I can't get it to detect the hard drive. iDE 1 has a single 40GB Western Digital HDD on it, and IDE 2 has the DVD drives.

I've looked in the BIOS and nothing obvious stands out. The auto-detection facility just sits there doing nothing. I've tried removing some RAM to see if that was causing problems, but nothing changed.

Could it be that a 40 gig is too large for the BIOS? Seems possible if it has never had a BIOS update, though I'm sure if it has the last BIOS that ought to support a 40 gig drive.

gladders wrote:

... Western Digital HDD ...

Is it set to "single or master" mode?

So the optical drive(s) at IDE2 do get detected?

I would check the IDE1 cable first. Is pin1 connected to pin1? If the cable that is now on IDE2 is working, try that one on IDE1.

Do you hear the HDD spin up?

You can also try a different power supply molex connector for the HDD.

And, as other said: Check the jumper settings on the drive. ' Single or Master' should work. Try flashing the BIOS to a newer version if applicable.

Repo Man11 wrote:

Could it be that a 40 gig is too large for the BIOS? Seems possible if it has never had a BIOS update, though I'm sure if it has the last BIOS that ought to support a 40 gig drive.

From what I've read it should be able to handle 40GB easily.

SW-SSG wrote:

gladders wrote:

... Western Digital HDD ...

Is it set to "single or master" mode?

wdsingle.png

Yep.

Cyrix200+ wrote:

So the optical drive(s) at IDE2 do get detected?

Not initially, but if I manually put in the cylinders, heads etc for the drive into th BIOS, it skips primary detection and finds the optical drives. HDD still not visible though.

I would check the IDE1 cable first. Is pin1 connected to pin1? If the cable that is now on IDE2 is working, try that one on IDE1.

They both work as I just took them from my fully functioning P4 machine. Same drive, too.

Do you hear the HDD spin up?

I do not. I can feel it vibrating gently though which indicates it's alive.

You can also try a different power supply molex connector for the HDD.

Also already tried, sorry.

And, as other said: Check the jumper settings on the drive. ' Single or Master' should work. Try flashing the BIOS to a newer version if applicable.

Not sure how I can do that without using the HDD for DOS to manipulate the floppy drive, as I was using W98 on the P4 machine to do stuff via USB!

You could plug the Floppy drive into the P4 temporally to create the Bios boot disk.
Although I would think 40GB would be supported, but then I would think it would just work as well!

You could try the HDD in IDE2, that will narrow down if its just an error on IDE1 or something greater.
Does the IDE cable have 2 connectors? and if it does make sure the HDD is attached to the end connector.
http://www.upgradenrepair.com/computerparts/c … ns/idecable.htm

IDE could be broken. But you can still use EIDE addon card like Promise Ultra on PCI in the end.

I wonder, could IDE cables mess up hard drives? I ask because I think the cable I'm using for the optical drives has killed two hard drives...

gladders wrote:

I wonder, could IDE cables mess up hard drives? I ask because I think the cable I'm using for the optical drives has killed two hard drives...

I suppose it's possible. I once had an issue that turned out to be a bad IDE cable. I spent lots of time on that computer only to finally solve the issue by swapping in another ribbon cable. Then there was the time I was playing with my K6VB3, and went out to the garage to get another video card. When I came back, it was having a problem running, and I finally discovered that my cat had bitten the ribbon cable (the case cover was off) while I was out rooting through my junk.

To clarify, the plastic connectors on IDE cables can start to separate after repeated removals, especially if it is a tight fit into the drive. This can be so subtle that you don't see it, so the cable looks fine but doesn't work.

Ok. I'm pretty sure it's not the IDE cable now. I swapped out the 40GB WD for a 200GB Seagate Barracuda, and using the detect HDD facility in the BIOS it detected the drive, but only as 8.5GB.

However it then gets stuck booting on the 'Verifying DMA pool data' stage. Just sits there.

I fiddled with jumpers to make it appear to be 32GB in size, but then the computer reports primary slave failure. Re-running the HD detection function report no master, just a slave.

At least it's a different error, right? What can I do?

gladders wrote:

Ok. I'm pretty sure it's not the IDE cable now. I swapped out the 40GB WD for a 200GB Seagate Barracuda, and using the detect HD […]
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Ok. I'm pretty sure it's not the IDE cable now. I swapped out the 40GB WD for a 200GB Seagate Barracuda, and using the detect HDD facility in the BIOS it detected the drive, but only as 8.5GB.

However it then gets stuck booting on the 'Verifying DMA pool data' stage. Just sits there.

I fiddled with jumpers to make it appear to be 32GB in size, but then the computer reports primary slave failure. Re-running the HD detection function report no master, just a slave.

At least it's a different error, right? What can I do?

It appears that your motherboard can only support up to an 8.4gb hard drive, at least without a bios update. I would recommend flashing the bios to the latest version and trying again. Or, if that still does not work, buy an IDE controller card that supports more than 8.4gb. I would suggest a Promise Ultra 100 or Ultra 133 card.

Well, I dunno what i did, but it suddenly decides to work?? Computers, eh.

Installing windows 98 now. Once that's done I'll get on with flashing the bios.

If you end up having weird stability issues consider a recap. Slot1- early 478 motherboards they tended to use bad capacitors on many models.

Thanks for the tip, I'll keep it in mind.

Do you think that's why it suddenly started working?

I'm baffled as to why it just refused to see my 40GB hard disk. I'm wasting a 200GB hard disk on this infernal machine. What gives?

Can you post a pictures of the IDE connector of the hard disk?

Oh, for the love of...MY HARD DRIVE GOT CORRUPTED!!!

Everything was going great until I updated the BIOS, then windows complained about some I/O file being weird so I went for a fresh install, and then it says scan disk wants to check everything, scan disk says it's ok, but now Setup refuses to install due to a problem with the drive!

So now I'm doing another scandisk to see if it can iron out the problems, and because this 200GB is the only one that will work (the 40GB *still* won't), it's taking HOURS...

I wouldn't trust that at all!

BX chipset is limited to 160GB, you need a chipset that supports 48bit LBA for larger drives.

While we are at limits..
Win9x needs c:\ to be smaller then 137GB as it uses 28bit LBA
Finally earlier Fdisks don't allow partitions greater then 64GB, they did realise an update
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/2630 … rger-than-64-gb

I think Win98 scandisks are broken as well, you may be better off with WinME boot disk, or smaller partitons if its just the 1 big drive.

but yeh if you just have 1 big 200GB partition it is corrupt in soo many different ways!