smoke86 wrote on 2026-04-24, 11:33:

Hi, […]
Show full quote

Hi,

I recently aquired a FIC 486-GIO-VT2 motherboard and it does seem to have a IDE controller problem. This board has onboard IDE controller with2 channels.
I tried many IDE cables (both 40 and 80 wires) with two HDDs (10GB and 202MB, both set to Master) and one CF adapter with 1GB card (works as system disk with other DOS system) and I cannot get it to work with primary channel - nothing is being detected.

On the secondary channel disks are being detected (post screen shows those properly), but when I run fdisk there is nothing there - no HDDs detected.

BIOS has weird quirk with HDD detection - it decects HDDs as C, D, E, or F instead of primary master, primary slave etc.

I will fiddle with onboard jumpers, clean the contacts etc. If that won't work, I will try disabling IDE channel and try an ISA controller.

I have never encountered this problem before, please help.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/fic-486-gio-vt2

Look at BIOS section.
What's your BIOS version?

Latest official, 3.26G. I also tried Highscreen OEM, but no luck. Will try 3.07G - the oldest one.
But I don't think it is an BIOS issue

smoke86 wrote on 2026-04-24, 11:33:

Hi, […]
Show full quote

Hi,

I recently aquired a FIC 486-GIO-VT2 motherboard and it does seem to have a IDE controller problem. This board has onboard IDE controller with2 channels.
I tried many IDE cables (both 40 and 80 wires) with two HDDs (10GB and 202MB, both set to Master) and one CF adapter with 1GB card (works as system disk with other DOS system) and I cannot get it to work with primary channel - nothing is being detected.

On the secondary channel disks are being detected (post screen shows those properly), but when I run fdisk there is nothing there - no HDDs detected.

BIOS has weird quirk with HDD detection - it decects HDDs as C, D, E, or F instead of primary master, primary slave etc.

I will fiddle with onboard jumpers, clean the contacts etc. If that won't work, I will try disabling IDE channel and try an ISA controller.

I have never encountered this problem before, please help.

The PRIMARY IDE channel is on VLB bus while SECONDARY IDE channel in on ISA

PRIMARY is for HDDs while SECONDARY are limited for ATAPI (CDROM's and other (fl)optical devices

Whats FSB speed is set on your motherboard and what configuration in general are you use?

It's paired with Intel 486Dx2 66MHz with 16(4x4)Mb RAM FPM, graphics card, FDD and a keyboard, nothing else .
FSB is 33 MHz.

OK, now I feel like an idiot.
It turns out that a jumper that was enabling primary IDE controller was broken inside and did not make proper contact.
Thanks for your help guys!

smoke86 wrote on 2026-04-24, 15:12:

OK, now I feel like an idiot.
It turns out that a jumper that was enabling primary IDE controller was broken inside and did not make proper contact.
Thanks for your help guys!

I recall reading some PC Magazine or PC World article back then where this happened with a cache jumper and the author obviously found it infuriating.

I'd call it good luck then, especially that this very board had a microcrack on a trace that delivered standby voltage to CMOS to keep settings - only visible under a microscope