HD not compatible?

[Harold W.]

I'm using a few 80 gb hard drives on an Asus AMD motherboard (about 2 - 3 years old). The primary master is detected fine. But I
can't seem to install any other hard drive. The jumpers have been tried in master/slave/cable select modes, etc. How can there be
such shoddy inconsistancy in the industry?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm using a few 80 gb hard drives on an Asus AMD motherboard (about 2 - 3

years old). The primary master is detected fine. But I

can't seem to install any other hard drive. The jumpers have been tried

in master/slave/cable select modes, etc. How can there be

such shoddy inconsistancy in the industry?

A careful person would notice that this is a
Windows 2000 newsgroup, and only a careless
person would post a hardware item here.
Furthermore I suggest that you test your disks
in some other system. You might have a batch
of dud disks, a bad motherboard, a marginal
controller or a poor ribbon cable. Your tests
are far too limited to make a general observation
about the industry.

 

[Harold W.]

I'm using a few 80 gb hard drives on an Asus AMD motherboard

A careful person would notice that this is a
Windows 2000 newsgroup, and only a careless
person would post a hardware item here.
Furthermore I suggest that you test your disks
in some other system. You might have a batch
of dud disks, a bad motherboard, a marginal
controller or a poor ribbon cable. Your tests
are far too limited to make a general observation
about the industry.

I'm convinced the problem is the operating system as I've interchanged just about everything else to
isolate it. So how about a solution? A careful one of course......

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I'm convinced the problem is the operating system as I've interchanged just about everything else to
isolate it. So how about a solution? A careful one of course......

OK, if you're prepared to run some tests rather than
sheeting out blame, here is what I would try:
1. Disconnect the old disk.
2. Jumper the new disk as a primary master, and connect it.
3. Can the BIOS detect it?
4. Boot the machine with a Win9x boot disk (www.bootdisk.com).
5. Run fdisk.exe. Can you see the disk?
6. Boot the machine with your Win2000 CD. Can you see the disk?
7. Download and run the free diagnostic program that the disk
manufacturer makes available on his home site. Is the disk OK?
8. Repeat Steps 3 to 7 with the new disk as the primary master
and the old disk as the secondary master.
9. Repeat Steps 3 to 7 with the new disk as the primary master
and the old disk as the primary slave.
10. Repeat Steps 3 to 7 with the new disk as the primary slave
and the old disk as the primary master. Note that many disks
make the distinction between "Sole master" and "Master,
Slave present".

The results should be revealing.

 

[Harold W.]

I'm using a few 80 gb hard drives on an Asus AMD motherboard

1. Disconnect the old disk.
2. Jumper the new disk as a primary master, and connect it.
3. Can the BIOS detect it?

See above. Yes - the bios detects it. Its the second disk that has a problem in Win 2000.

4. Boot the machine with a Win9x boot disk (www.bootdisk.com).
5. Run fdisk.exe. Can you see the disk?

Sorry - my floppy is out of commision.

6. Boot the machine with your Win2000 CD. Can you see the disk?

I'm pretty sure it saw both of them in the blue screen startup part of the CD.

7. Download and run the free diagnostic program that the disk
manufacturer makes available on his home site. Is the disk OK?

My point was that if Win2000 was designed properly I wouldn't have to go to the manufacturer. If
its an IDE drive it should be detected. Or MS should acknowledge that the OS can't detect the drive
properly and demand the manufacturers to offer small driver files.

8. Repeat Steps 3 to 7 with the new disk as the primary master
and the old disk as the secondary master.
9. Repeat Steps 3 to 7 with the new disk as the primary master
and the old disk as the primary slave.
10. Repeat Steps 3 to 7 with the new disk as the primary slave
and the old disk as the primary master. Note that many disks
make the distinction between "Sole master" and "Master,
Slave present".

Yes - that was accounted for. I was using a Seagate 80gb as master which doesn't care if a slave
is present.

The results should be revealing.

Yes - they reveal how crappy this OS is. You see when everything is peeled away the OS is the weak
link. Always has been. Always will be until the public demands better engineering.

I thank you for very logically giving a thorough, step by step rundown on the problem. It was well
said and well thought out. And just this morning before I read this I thought about step 7 and how
I got a difficult to detect drive to work with an old bios/mb a few years ago. But this is a
relatively new setup and I wouldn't have thought there would have been problems in the detection of
the drives.

I wonder if there might be a 137 gb limit in the bios somewhere that is the fly in the ointment?
Sometimes the bios would detect the second drive as a 136 gb - what's the coincidence of that?

And I wonder if I was using a modern PCI IDE controller card that would improve things? I'm moving
a lot of video files back and forth so if it would improve the speed that would be an additional
bonus to be sure.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

See above. Yes - the bios detects it. Its the second disk that has a problem in Win 2000.


Sorry - my floppy is out of commision.


I'm pretty sure it saw both of them in the blue screen startup part of the CD.

My point was that if Win2000 was designed properly I wouldn't have to go to the manufacturer. If
its an IDE drive it should be detected. Or MS should acknowledge that the OS can't detect the drive
properly and demand the manufacturers to offer small driver files.


Yes - that was accounted for. I was using a Seagate 80gb as master which doesn't care if a slave
is present.


Yes - they reveal how crappy this OS is. You see when everything is peeled away the OS is the weak
link. Always has been. Always will be until the public demands better engineering.

I thank you for very logically giving a thorough, step by step rundown on the problem. It was well
said and well thought out. And just this morning before I read this I thought about step 7 and how
I got a difficult to detect drive to work with an old bios/mb a few years ago. But this is a
relatively new setup and I wouldn't have thought there would have been problems in the detection of
the drives.

I wonder if there might be a 137 gb limit in the bios somewhere that is the fly in the ointment?
Sometimes the bios would detect the second drive as a 136 gb - what's the coincidence of that?

And I wonder if I was using a modern PCI IDE controller card that would improve things? I'm moving
a lot of video files back and forth so if it would improve the speed that would be an additional
bonus to be sure.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305098

 

[Andy]

See above. Yes - the bios detects it. Its the second disk that has a problem in Win 2000.


Sorry - my floppy is out of commision.


I'm pretty sure it saw both of them in the blue screen startup part of the CD.


My point was that if Win2000 was designed properly I wouldn't have to go to the manufacturer. If

Sounds like you need to run Disk Management and create a partition on
the new drive.