Does your board or controller (still) detect other harddisks greater than 32 GB?

Yes, it does. I sees my Samsung 160 GB HDD up to 136 GB without any issue. The same goes for my promise controller. I guess that means, I'm out of luck 🙁
Thanks anyway 😀

Western Digital drives need to be jumpered for single drive configuration or master or slave or cable select when you have multiple drives on the same channel. Please check the jumpers.

Indeed, the jumpers may be the issue. I had to learn that the hard way, back when there was no Internet to consult with. As soon as I could move to SATA, I never looked back at IDE, though I still keep an IDE card and some cables in my toolbox, for whatever purpose they could serve in the future.

try it with another drive on same channel

Hi, my drive doesn't have a jumper setting for single drive. For single drive it's supposed to be configured as master.

However I'll definitely try cable select and 2 drives on one channel - I missed that when checking the drive. Thanks for the suggestions!

RetroGamer4Ever wrote on 2022-01-28, 16:28:

Indeed, the jumpers may be the issue. I had to learn that the hard way, back when there was no Internet to consult with. As soon as I could move to SATA, I never looked back at IDE, though I still keep an IDE card and some cables in my toolbox, for whatever purpose they could serve in the future.

SATA is indeed a so much more convenient way of hooking up drives. I really like it a lot, especially since it's capable of Hot Plug, AHCI and so on, but for a retro build it's supposed to be at least as much the way it was back in the day as I can justify my time and money for it.

If it weren't for some headache because of some configuration quirks, some fun in playing with old parts would go missing for me 😁

Kampfkoloss wrote on 2022-01-28, 17:44:

Hi, my drive doesn't have a jumper setting for single drive. For single drive it's supposed to be configured as master.

However I'll definitely try cable select and 2 drives on one channel - I missed that when checking the drive. Thanks for the suggestions!

It's likely a WD drive has a jumper setting for a single drive. It's been that way for years. What is connected to your IDE cable? If it's the only drive, remove the jumper and place it on the storage position. They usually don't print the instructions on the drive label.
https://eshop.macsales.com/Tech/manuals/idehd … ttings/WD72.pdf

I find cable select unreliable. I always jumper the drive specific to the configuration, plus respect the Western Digital way of jumpering.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-01-29, 15:39:

I find cable select unreliable. I always jumper the drive specific to the configuration, plus respect the Western Digital way of jumpering.

I try both, especially with USB adapters I often have more luck with the Cable Select option.

Your drive "service area" cylinder got corrupted. You may give on it, as the only reliable way to fix this is rebuilding the SA with some specialized HDD analysis software like the ACELabs PC3000 (yes, you have to rebuild it, a simple copy from a donor will destroy the drive), and then reuploading the rebuilt cylinder dump to its corresponding place. And yeah, you may hope the SA doesn't contain bad sectors, or then all this still will not work.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-01-29, 15:39:

It's likely a WD drive has a jumper setting for a single drive. It's been that way for years. What is connected to your IDE cable? If it's the only drive, remove the jumper and place it on the storage position. They usually don't print the instructions on the drive label.
https://eshop.macsales.com/Tech/manuals/idehd … ttings/WD72.pdf

I find cable select unreliable. I always jumper the drive specific to the configuration, plus respect the Western Digital way of jumpering.

My 98-PC has a single HDD. I've now tried the single drive jumper setting I've found in the PDF you provided... And it worked! I didn't know, they didn't print their complete jumper diagram on their hard drives - what a mess o0
The only settings displayed on my HDD (Caviar WD400) are Master/Single ::|:: Slave :::|: and Cable Select ::::| (: = free pins, |= jumper attached).

What really messes with my mind is: it worked before, with this HDD jumpered as Master in the very same PC.

Disruptor wrote on 2022-01-29, 17:28:

the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-01-29, 15:39:

I find cable select unreliable. I always jumper the drive specific to the configuration, plus respect the Western Digital way of jumpering.

I try both, especially with USB adapters I often have more luck with the Cable Select option.

I also tried cable select with the hard drive connected to my promise pci controller with a 80 wire-IDE cable and it worked fine, too with the jumper settings provided in the PDF. I can't judge if cable select is more reliable, I haven't tried it in any of my PCs containing IDE HDDs up until now 😁

hyoenmadan wrote on 2022-01-30, 00:59:

Your drive "service area" cylinder got corrupted. You may give on it, as the only reliable way to fix this is rebuilding the SA with some specialized HDD analysis software like the ACELabs PC3000 (yes, you have to rebuild it, a simple copy from a donor will destroy the drive), and then reuploading the rebuilt cylinder dump to its corresponding place. And yeah, you may hope the SA doesn't contain bad sectors, or then all this still will not work.

Is it still possible this area is broken, when the drive is being detected again be the mainboard and the promise controller's bios? If so, I think it wouldn't be reliable as a system disk anymore.

Kampfkoloss wrote on 2022-01-30, 19:18:

Is it still possible this area is broken, when the drive is being detected again be the mainboard and the promise controller's bios? If so, I think it wouldn't be reliable as a system disk anymore.

Yes, is possible if the SA has weak bits...
There is also a possibility on the head amplifiers being on their last.

Kampfkoloss wrote on 2022-01-30, 19:12:

the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-01-29, 15:39:

It's likely a WD drive has a jumper setting for a single drive. It's been that way for years. What is connected to your IDE cable? If it's the only drive, remove the jumper and place it on the storage position. They usually don't print the instructions on the drive label.
https://eshop.macsales.com/Tech/manuals/idehd … ttings/WD72.pdf

I find cable select unreliable. I always jumper the drive specific to the configuration, plus respect the Western Digital way of jumpering.

My 98-PC has a single HDD. I've now tried the single drive jumper setting I've found in the PDF you provided... And it worked! I didn't know, they didn't print their complete jumper diagram on their hard drives - what a mess o0
The only settings displayed on my HDD (Caviar WD400) are Master/Single ::|:: Slave :::|: and Cable Select ::::| (: = free pins, |= jumper attached).

Good. Now does the drive work reliably? Western Digital Drives have always been a bit vague on the single drive setting, unless you had kept the original instructions. They are not the same as other drives.

Kampfkoloss wrote on 2022-01-30, 19:12:

What really messes with my mind is: it worked before, with this HDD jumpered as Master in the very same PC.

You may have been using cable select, or using cable select somewhere else. It sometimes work, with the right cable/controller. I never really bothered fully understanding that arrangement, since I started with IDE in the earliest days and it was usually just set master or slave. I don't see why cable select was a good idea. At best it does work, but sometimes not in the order you want for it, so you have to move drives around rather than just set jumpers.

I still have a very early western digital IDE drive here. I'm not sure if it has the single/dual thing there, it's been a long time since I used it, but it still works.

Kampfkoloss wrote on 2022-01-30, 19:16:

I also tried cable select with the hard drive connected to my promise pci controller with a 80 wire-IDE cable and it worked fine, too with the jumper settings provided in the PDF. I can't judge if cable select is more reliable, I haven't tried it in any of my PCs containing IDE HDDs up until now 😁

Yup. Well I probably wouldn't bother testing CS in other configurations now that you know how to set a WD drive. But anyhow, I think the question now is if the drive is actually on the last legs or not. The last WD400 Caviar I tried a few weeks ago was dead, and I've seen a few WD drives dead or dying from that era. Not sure about reliability of WD from this time period (2001-2004?) at this point. When's the manufacture date?

Kampfkoloss wrote on 2022-01-30, 19:18:

hyoenmadan wrote on 2022-01-30, 00:59:

Your drive "service area" cylinder got corrupted. You may give on it, as the only reliable way to fix this is rebuilding the SA with some specialized HDD analysis software like the ACELabs PC3000 (yes, you have to rebuild it, a simple copy from a donor will destroy the drive), and then reuploading the rebuilt cylinder dump to its corresponding place. And yeah, you may hope the SA doesn't contain bad sectors, or then all this still will not work.

Is it still possible this area is broken, when the drive is being detected again be the mainboard and the promise controller's bios? If so, I think it wouldn't be reliable as a system disk anymore.

No, hyoenmadan post would only make sense if drive stopped working altogether, or was working intermittently. Working in USB enclosure is a clear sign drive is ok, but there is problem with detection. Detecting IDE drives is a mess because for historical reasons. You often couldnt even use more than one drive from different manufacturer on same cable back in early nineties

http://www.os2museum.com/wp/the-dual-drive-ide-hell/
>To behave correctly, Device 0 has to act differently depending on whether Device 1 is present; if Device 1 is present, Device 0 has to let it respond to register accesses directed to it, but if there is no Device 1, then Device 0 has to respond to simulate a two-drive controller with no second drive attached.

USB enclosure doesnt care and doesnt even try accessing second device, therefore bypasses all potential problems.

hyoenmadan wrote on 2022-01-30, 21:23:

Yes, is possible if the SA has weak bits...
There is also a possibility on the head amplifiers being on their last.

A lot of things are possible. This drive could be possessed by ghosts, developed AI, or contain contents of whole Library of Congress. What makes you think its storage mechanism is defective?

Kampfkoloss wrote on 2022-01-30, 19:18:

Is it still possible this area is broken, when the drive is being detected again be the mainboard and the promise controller's bios? If so, I think it wouldn't be reliable as a system disk anymore.

I'd suggest you try running WDs Data Lifeguard Diagnostics / Tools from DOS to check on the drives health - https://web.archive.org/web/20050413004116/ht … downloadxml.asp

rasz_pl wrote on 2022-01-31, 05:40:

A lot of things are possible. This drive could be possessed by ghosts, developed AI, or contain contents of whole Library of Congress. What makes you think its storage mechanism is defective?

Experience with the WD4xx and WD8xx drive series. Back then was noted the erratic behavior described by OP, and this detail about being recognized only on certain USB enclosures (back then were trascend usb ide bridges the best ones for the work) and apparently working well with them for some time, until the platter data wasn't longer accessible (on BIOS you would see a 10MB or 0MB drive, with the drive internal "nickname" as drive identifier string, and a random generated serial number). Autopsy on these drives revealed one physical cause (dead head amplifier chips), and multiple software causes (SA data corrupted (common with certain nvidia, ALi, and the dreaded VIA KT133 chipset), or SA weak bits (which in turn was a sign something was wrong with the head amplifier chip).

the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-01-31, 01:56:

Good. Now does the drive work reliably? Western Digital Drives have always been a bit vague on the single drive setting, unless […]
Show full quote

Kampfkoloss wrote on 2022-01-30, 19:12:

the3dfxdude wrote on 2022-01-29, 15:39:

It's likely a WD drive has a jumper setting for a single drive. It's been that way for years. What is connected to your IDE cable? If it's the only drive, remove the jumper and place it on the storage position. They usually don't print the instructions on the drive label.
https://eshop.macsales.com/Tech/manuals/idehd … ttings/WD72.pdf

I find cable select unreliable. I always jumper the drive specific to the configuration, plus respect the Western Digital way of jumpering.

My 98-PC has a single HDD. I've now tried the single drive jumper setting I've found in the PDF you provided... And it worked! I didn't know, they didn't print their complete jumper diagram on their hard drives - what a mess o0
The only settings displayed on my HDD (Caviar WD400) are Master/Single ::|:: Slave :::|: and Cable Select ::::| (: = free pins, |= jumper attached).

Good. Now does the drive work reliably? Western Digital Drives have always been a bit vague on the single drive setting, unless you had kept the original instructions. They are not the same as other drives.

Kampfkoloss wrote on 2022-01-30, 19:12:

What really messes with my mind is: it worked before, with this HDD jumpered as Master in the very same PC.

You may have been using cable select, or using cable select somewhere else. It sometimes work, with the right cable/controller. I never really bothered fully understanding that arrangement, since I started with IDE in the earliest days and it was usually just set master or slave. I don't see why cable select was a good idea. At best it does work, but sometimes not in the order you want for it, so you have to move drives around rather than just set jumpers.

I still have a very early western digital IDE drive here. I'm not sure if it has the single/dual thing there, it's been a long time since I used it, but it still works.

Kampfkoloss wrote on 2022-01-30, 19:16:

I also tried cable select with the hard drive connected to my promise pci controller with a 80 wire-IDE cable and it worked fine, too with the jumper settings provided in the PDF. I can't judge if cable select is more reliable, I haven't tried it in any of my PCs containing IDE HDDs up until now 😁

Yup. Well I probably wouldn't bother testing CS in other configurations now that you know how to set a WD drive. But anyhow, I think the question now is if the drive is actually on the last legs or not. The last WD400 Caviar I tried a few weeks ago was dead, and I've seen a few WD drives dead or dying from that era. Not sure about reliability of WD from this time period (2001-2004?) at this point. When's the manufacture date?

Hey, sorry for the late reply. The drive's from 1 Nov 2003. I've got the drive used a few years ago without its original documentation and packaging and it has served in many iterations of this project reliably.

It's now set up in neutral position / single drive as provided in the PDF by 3dfxdude. I think CS is a bit of a hassle, because -as far as I understand- all other drives in the system have to support CS AND have to be jumpered accordingly. Without original documentation it's hit or miss.

Back to my HDD:
After shortly working when connected to mainboard and promise ultra66 pci (not at the same time, but one after another) without any other cards except for voodoo and sb live (sb0100), the whole system froze again after adding my other cards to the system (intel 1000MT-NIC, Via 6212L USB2 Controller).

I think the drive is either on its last legs OR it's a major resource conflict because of too many cards.