HPT366 Drive Detection issue with BE-6 on Primary IDE

Discussion in 'Processors, Motherboards & Memory' started by Evil Homer, Dec 11, 2002.

  1. Evil Homer

    Evil Homer Newbie

    Here's hoping you may be able to offer some advice on the following issue. I've been scouring the net looking for a solution, but so far no dice.

    System:
    Win98SE - IE 5.5 SP2 - DX8.1b
    ABIT BE-6 w BIOS v TH (the latest)
    Highpoint 366 controller driver v1.25
    G4 Ti4200
    SB Live 5.1
    Realtek NIC
    1 20GB Maxtor HD, 3 30GB Maxtor HD, 2 60 GB Maxtor HD
    2 CD-R's

    Basic config:
    Primary IDE: Master 30GB HD, Slave 20GB HD
    Secondary IDE: Both CD-R's

    Highpoint Primary IDE: Master 30GB HD, Slave 60GB HD
    Highpoint Secondary IDE: Master 60GB HD, Slave 30GB HD

    Here's the problem:
    If the OS is installed on the Primary IDE 30 GB HD, then everything works. No problems!

    However, if I install the OS on the Highpoint Primary IDE, (or swap the drive, etc) then the two HD's on the Primary IDE fail to work properly.

    a. I get an Init Failure esdi_506.pdr for one of the devices.
    b. Both devices are put into MS-DOS compatibility mode.
    c. The primary drive is displayed twice in Explorer
    d. Only one drive is listed in Device Manager with a red X.
    e. The Primary IDE controller (dual fifo) has a Yellow exclamation point.

    I have tried and/or noted all of the following:

    - If I boot into safe mode, then both drives become available, and no errors appear.
    - The above is with a fresh OS install. Either installed fresh on each drive, ghosted from a "working" install, or the drives physically swapped out.
    - The motherboard supports up to 40GB on std IDE controllers and 60GB on Highpoint. (so no size compatibilty issues)
    - Both the 20 and 30 on the Primary IDE have been formatted and configured using the Maxtor Install utility (Drive Rocket?) No change.
    - No drives have any kind of MBR virus.
    - There is not a NOIDE entry in the registry.
    - I am using the esdi_506.pdr file bundled with Win98SE v4.10.2222
    - If only 1 HD is plugged in on the Primary IDE, it works fine (either one).
    - Reversing master/slave has no effect other than it is only the master that is 'recognized" by Windows.
    - Unplugging the CD-R's from the Secondary IDE have no effect.
    - BMIDE drivers from Intel are irrelevant as they are for Win95 only.

    Literaly, if I put the 30GB drive with the OS install on the Primary IDE, everything is recognized and works fine (DMA enabled, the whole 9 yards).
    If I then move the drive to the Highpoint Primary IDE, then the Standard Primary IDE drives/drivers show this behavior.

    Note that this configuration *is* "supported" because in the past I had both an 8GB and a 20GB on the Primary IDE with the OS loading from the Highpoint Primary IDE and they worked fine. The 8 was moved to another machine a while back, leaving the 20 by itself. Recently I picked up another 60 and rotated one of the 30's to take the place of the old 8. But now Win98 refuses to recognized the drives properly when the OS is run from the Highpoint controller.

    I have been battling this for almost 2 full weeks now, installing/uninstalling, playing with configurations loading old Intel MB INF drivers (thinking maybe a "bug" crept in somewhere), but so far no luck.

    If anyone there can point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it.

    -Evil Homer
     
  2. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Hello Evil Homer,

    First of all, was there a specific reason for formatting the drives using Maxtor's utility? There's really no reason to use a drive overlay unless you have problems detecting the drive. If you have no data on them, try formatting them using Win98.

    Hmm... Could be an IRQ problem since your system seems pretty loaded. Try removing the SB Live 5.1 and the NIC. That should free up one or two IRQs.
     
  3. Evil Homer

    Evil Homer Newbie

    The Maxtor Utility initializes the drive and readys it for use. It also supports basic disk copy function. Formatting the drives using FDisk is not always successful and in many cases fails due to the current sizes of HD's these days. Overall it's unnecessary and mostly irrelevant.

    Formatting the drive in Win 98 is not possible as the drives are not correctly recognized by Win98. Note that in DOS / Safe Mode / Booting from the Primary IDE, the drives are recognized properly and all VMM drivers are loaded properly by Win98. It is only when the same OS installation is booted from the Highpoint controller that the drives on the Primary IDE port are not recognized properly.

    It could be an IRQ issue, but nothing shows a conflict. And in swapping the drives no other cards/periphials are changed or moved and it boots up fine.

    Thanks for taking a stab at it though. I am so puzzled by this... it's frustating! :)

    - Evil Homer
     
  4. Adrian Wong

    Adrian Wong Da Boss Staff Member

    Hmm... I never had any problem with FDISK. It should be able to support at least up to 40GB.

    But if you can FDISK and Win98 still cannot detect it, then the overlay isn't the problem. However, if you can try FDISKing one of the drives and it works... then the overlay's the problem.

    BTW, what kind of cables are you using with your hard disks? Do you detach the hard disks from the cables when you switch or transfer them with the hard disk?
     

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