douglar wrote on Today, 17:24:

Here's what happens for the standard protected mode IDE driver ESDI_506.PDR : 1. The "NoIDE" Registry Flag - the driver checks […]
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wierd_w wrote on Today, 15:30:

It tends to happen when dos disk drivers are loaded.

Certain dos atapi or scsi drivers trigger it, iirc.

Here's what happens for the standard protected mode IDE driver ESDI_506.PDR :
1. The "NoIDE" Registry Flag - the driver checks HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\IOS for a value named NoIDE. If this exists (often placed by Windows after a crash), the driver aborts.
2. "Safe to Hook" Check - The I/O Supervisor (IOS) checks if the drive is already being managed by a driver other than the motherboard BIOS. If it is handled by a DOS driver and the driver is not listed in the c:\windows\IOS.INI "safe" list, the protected-mode driver aborts.
3. Controller Validation - The driver attempts to communicate directly with the IDE controller's I/O ports . if the the "Busy" bit stays on too long, the protected mode driver fails to initialize.
4. ATA Identity Command - The protected mode driver wants to see a 512-byte block of data containing the model number, firmware version, the drive geometry and capabilities like LBA support. If the drive returns garbage or fails to respond, the protected-mode driver exits.
5. Interrupt validation - The protected-mode driver triggers a simple command and waits for the hardware interrupt for the returned results. If the interrupt smells funny, the protected-mode driver exits. This catches many newer IDE controllers.
6. Geometry Sync - compares the geometry returned by the identify device command against the BIOS drive table. If there is a discrepancy that it cannot understand, the protected-mode driver exits.

So it sounds like windows is passing all those tests unless there is some odd third party IDE driver loaded.

Only thing that springs to mind would be the RAID adapter driver...? But I'm sure I had this issue with GK3's installation before I bought that. Other than that, there's the HPT controller, which has the latest driver installed (I think?) - 1.26. Prior to re-installing my 80GB HDD, I did disable that controller in the BIOS. I can always try disabling it again and resetting everything in the BIOS...?

Hmm. The mystery continues… Reset the BIOS settings and disabled the HPT controller, disabled Nero DriveSpeed, uninstalled CDSlow, and then reinstalled CDSlow. Quake 2 installed perfectly! It actually takes around 50-55% of the install time just for pak0.pak to copy.

So one of those is the root cause, it seems. Just trying to narrow down what. Reinstalling CDSlow may have helped…? Having both CDSlow and DriveSpeed running could have been conflicting…? Or maybe it is the HPT controller that’s to blame…? When it was disabled though, the HDD LED was permanently stuck. Like it was forever trying to load something. Since enabling it it’s stopped. Will try installing it again and see what happens.

Huh. Even with the HPT controller enabled, it installed and plays fine. So something somewhere must have got its knickers in a twist. Will re-try Gabriel Knight 3 next.