Trouble booting Win98 on a SCSI drive

[hank]

Hi,

My system as relevant to the problem consists of a Pentium 166 MHz
CPU, running Win98 with an (old) Award BIOS for the boot-up sequence..
The storage is a small (less than) 2 Gig SCSI hard drive that is the
boot drive (partitioned as C: and D and a second non-booting 8 Gig
IDE hard drive (partitioned as E: and F.

My problem is that the boot drive (the SCSI) sometimes loads Windows
and sometimes does not. That is to say, the system goes through the
Award BIOS without a problem (it does the memory test and cycles up
the A: and B: floppies and puts up the BIOS screen on the monitor
etc.) but when it should start loading Windows and the first Windows
98 screen should show up on the monitor it stalls (although sometimes
it does proceed normally and I then have a working system!) with the
BIOS screen and just sits there! When this happens, I can hear the
SCSI harddrive rev up and then a few seconds later hear one single
click (something like a circuit-breaker popping?) and then I know that
Windows will not appear and I hear the drive rev down. Failure of the
system always is accompanied by this single click.

I have tried to reseat the SCSI board and the edge connectors on the
hard drive, but this has not changed anything. I have not yet cleaned
the contacts with solution (What is it called?). That might help.

Anyone have any ideas of what my problem might be? What could this
click sound be. It is not continuous grinding or clicking, but just
one click. Are there any circuit breakers or anything on the mother
board, SCSI board or the hard drive that would cause this click and
then rev down the hard drive?

Thank for the help in advance.

Hankman

PS: At one point the Award BIOS (I think) sent a message at boot-up
that read:

Updating ESCD....... Success
Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM: Creative CD1220E.......... Failure
Disk Boot failure, Insert System Disk and Press ENTER.

I only got this message a couple of times and no longer see it.
Any idea of what ESCD is?
Also why did I only see this message a couple of times and not anymore
(or when the problem began)?

Thanks again

Hankman

 

[Rod Speed]

My system as relevant to the problem consists of a Pentium 166 MHz
CPU, running Win98 with an (old) Award BIOS for the boot-up sequence..
The storage is a small (less than) 2 Gig SCSI hard drive that is the
boot drive (partitioned as C: and D and a second non-booting 8 Gig
IDE hard drive (partitioned as E: and F.

My problem is that the boot drive (the SCSI) sometimes loads Windows
and sometimes does not. That is to say, the system goes through the
Award BIOS without a problem (it does the memory test and cycles up
the A: and B: floppies and puts up the BIOS screen on the monitor
etc.) but when it should start loading Windows and the first Windows
98 screen should show up on the monitor it stalls (although sometimes
it does proceed normally and I then have a working system!) with the
BIOS screen and just sits there! When this happens, I can hear the
SCSI harddrive rev up and then a few seconds later hear one single
click (something like a circuit-breaker popping?) and then I know that
Windows will not appear and I hear the drive rev down. Failure of the
system always is accompanied by this single click.

Thats usually the drive deciding that something is stuffed.

That can be due to the drive not always being able to read the
platters properly at boot time, or it can be something as basic
as the power supply sagging as the drives are spun up etc.

I have tried to reseat the SCSI board and the edge connectors
on the hard drive, but this has not changed anything.

Try physically unplugging the IDE drive and see
if the system will boot reliably with just one drive.

If it wont, try one of the other power connectors on the
2GB drive. The metal tunnels the pins go into can open
up over time and not provide very good contact so the
drive doesnt get power reliably when its trying to spin up.

I have not yet cleaned the contacts with
solution (What is it called?). That might help.

Thats unlikely to produce those audible effect with the drive.

Anyone have any ideas of what my problem might be?

Its more likely to be a power problem or a failing
drive than dirty connectors on the SCSI HA.

What could this click sound be.

Thats just the drive head latch.

It is not continuous grinding or clicking, but just
one click. Are there any circuit breakers or
anything on the mother board, SCSI board
Nope.

or the hard drive that would cause this click

Yep, the head latch.

and then rev down the hard drive?

You've got that backward. Its the drive spinning down that
eventually gets the heads latched in the parking position.

PS: At one point the Award BIOS (I think)
sent a message at boot-up that read:

Updating ESCD....... Success
Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM: Creative CD1220E.......... Failure
Disk Boot failure, Insert System Disk and Press ENTER.

I only got this message a couple of times and no longer see it.
Any idea of what ESCD is?

The ESCD is where the basic Plug and Play data on
what hardware is present in the machine is stored.

You'll find that if you unplug the IDE drive, the bios should
update the ESCD because that drive is no longer visible.

Also why did I only see this message a couple of
times and not anymore (or when the problem began)?

Basically the bios is seeing the same hardware
at every boot now. That wasnt always true.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Hi,

My system as relevant to the problem

Try again.

consists of a Pentium 166 MHz
CPU, running Win98 with an (old) Award BIOS for the boot-up sequence..
The storage is a small (less than) 2 Gig SCSI hard drive that is the
boot drive (partitioned as C: and D and a second non-booting 8 Gig
IDE hard drive (partitioned as E: and F.

Relevant to your problem is the SCSI controller and drive in question,
both of which you don't mention.

My problem is that the boot drive (the SCSI) sometimes loads Windows
and sometimes does not. That is to say, the system goes through the
Award BIOS without a problem (it does the memory test and cycles up
the A: and B: floppies and puts up the BIOS screen on the monitor
etc.) but when it should start loading Windows and the first Windows
98 screen should show up on the monitor it stalls (although sometimes
it does proceed normally and I then have a working system!) with the
BIOS screen and just sits there!

When this happens, I can hear the SCSI harddrive rev up

That is too late. What did the SCSI bios POST say, just before that?

and then a few seconds later hear one single click (something like a circuit-
breaker popping?)

Heads release. Possibly followed by immediate heads retraction.

and then I know that Windows will not appear and I hear the drive rev down.

cause and consequence reversed.

Failure of the system always is accompanied by this single click.

I have tried to reseat the SCSI board and the edge connectors on the
hard drive, but this has not changed anything. I have not yet cleaned
the contacts with solution (What is it called?). That might help.

Anyone have any ideas of what my problem might be? What could this
click sound be. It is not continuous grinding or clicking, but just
one click. Are there any circuit breakers or anything on the mother
board, SCSI board or the hard drive that would cause this click and
then rev down the hard drive?

Thank for the help in advance.

Hankman

PS: At one point the Award BIOS (I think) sent a message at boot-up
that read:

Updating ESCD....... Success

Hardware configuration and PnP info changed.

Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM: Creative CD1220E.......... Failure
Disk Boot failure, Insert System Disk and Press ENTER.

Probably coincidental in combination with that ESCD sequence.
You probably had a bootable CD in that drive.

I only got this message a couple of times and no longer see it.
Any idea of what ESCD is?

'Extended System Configuration Data'
It holds PnP info.

 

[ES]

Hank,
Just a couple of possiblities:
--DOS and all versions of Windows must boot off the "first" hard drive seen
(even if the system files are elsewhere). I wonder if disabling the IDE hard
drive as a boot order item in the computer's BIOS setup might solve the
problem. But I know this doesn't explain the occasional successful boots.
--Try setting the delay or wait spin jumper on the SCSI drive, and sometimes
the SCSI controller must also be set to recognize this condition. CTRL +
some letter to get into the SCSI controller's setup at start up. You'll need
to know what kind of controller you have.

 

[Rod Speed]

Hank,
Just a couple of possiblities:
--DOS and all versions of Windows must boot off the "first"
hard drive seen (even if the system files are elsewhere).

Nope, not with decent modern bios.