IDE problem

[t31os]

I have this old board i've plonked a sempron 2400 onto, and its only ever had 1 hdd in.

Now the problem is, not matter how i set jumpers, switch cables etc, the bios will only ever pick up one ide device, and it always picks it up as the slave.

So its impossible to have more then one device on that channel, i got put 2 on, but one will always override the other.

Not had this problem myself before and wondered if anyone else has?

Specs are..

Old MSI board with onboard VGA (currently disabled and using geforce 2 in AGP)
Can't tell you any more since this bugger is impossible to find the model number on, but i do know i have the drivers and they are installed.
512mb TwinMOS DDR400
Sempron (as mentioned)
Maxtor 120gb 8mb cache IDE
DVD-rom drive
CD-RW drive
Geforce 2 AGP

Here's what i tried.......

Changed IDE cable twice.
Unplugged all drives except the one HDD
Checked bios for setting i might of overlooked
Reset CMOS
Changed jumpers on the HDD, Master, Slave, Cable select, No jumper

So any ideas guys?

 

[t31os]

I got 3 days before this pc is sold anyway, and since its use wont require the master ide on the controller it can live without it, was just hoping someone might of seen this before.

 

[t31os]

Thanx to anyone who took the time to read the thread anyway.

Have fixed the problem, have no idea what the problem was, but stripping it down and replugging everything seems to of made the problem vanish.

 

[luminous]

Pcs seem to wait till you want to give them a new home and act up ,stripping it down and reseating everything worked for me too glad you got it sorted.

 

[t31os]

Still no idea what happened, its setup no different now to when it had issues.....

Hasnt played up again yet, so fingers crossed, all i gotta do is figure out how to get fdisk to format the whole 120gb, seems to only pick up 51gb of the 120gb, and its been given 1 partition for the whole drive.

New owner needs it for Windows98 (long story). Just never had a drive this size back when i last used Win98 or WinME.

Looks like i'll have to pull out the Partition Magic boot disk on this one, being a right pain in the butt. Never had these problems when it had XP.

 

[Yewen]

What file system you using, there are limitations in the OS and file systems for drives that big, 120gb when 98 was released would be huge!

 

[t31os]

Well its going to have to be Fat32 for Win98.

I owner is the one choosing to put Win98 onto the drive, i'm sure he won't mind if it has a limitation.

What about partitioning it into say 3 partitions of 40gb using partition magic, you think Win98 would read it ok?......

He has to use Win98 because all the programs he intends to put on there are old and do not function on XP, he's tried various methods.

 

[t31os]

Used partition magic 7 and managed to get it all formatted and working proberly

 

[t31os]

Looks like the board was on its way out, the PC has been returned and fortunately a friend is sending me a free AN7...

Please please god don't let this board go wrong to!!