Fic 503+ IDE Problem

[awwall]

Just installed a new FIC 503+ Board in a machine where my wife works. Old MB died. Pulled processor (K6-266) and Memory (2) 32meg Sdrams and installed the new FIC MB. Now here's the problem. Has one HD, 3.2g, and one CD drive. On old MB the HD was on IDE port#1 as master, CD was on port#2 as Master and worked fine. Installed the same way in the new MB. Nothing would come up. After trial and error, found that I could unplug the CD from port#2 and machine would boot up great from the HD. To make a long story short, the only configuration I found that would work, was to put the CD on port#1 as the slave. Windows98 sees the CD and works with it fine, however, the DOS driver for the CD cannot find it, so cannot use the CD in DOS mode. Had I not already had windows on the HardDrive, I could not hve installed anything from the CD, since I cannot make the DOS driver work. BIOS detects the ATAPI drive as the slave and all looks great, but just want work from DOS level.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[CMonster]

First off, I have two of those boards: But, I have had no problems of this kind and have reconfigured the boards, installed and uninstalled drives, and reloaded operating systems numerous times. I can even access the CDROM with a boot disk.


It should have at least booted if the drives were both set as master of their own respective IDE channels. At first I would suspect a bad connection or that the drive jumper configuration was not correct - how is the data ribbon, did you test that? Since it appears that you have coverd all those things I would double check the all BIOS settings and make sure the applicable ones are set to auto. Then install the chipset drivers and try again - if it continues to give you problems it might be a good idea to just return it.

Some of my friends have recommended Asus P5~series super7 motherboards; I have not used them but here is a link: http://www.asus.com/mainboards.asp#PENTIUM

One thing I can tell you for sure, I did have trouble with the CDROM not appearing in Windows unitl I got the VIA chipset drivers installed and the yellow exclaimation marks cleared out of Windows device manager. I am now using the "Highpoint" busmaster drivers.

[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 07-14-99).]

[awwall]

Thanks for reply Cmonster. Any clues to why the dos driver can't find the CD? BIOS says its there on Boot. All drive detection is in Auto. Windows sees the CD with no problems. The problem I may have is if I ever need to re-install windows, I won't be able to because the dos driver can't find the CD.

thanks again
aw wall

[CMonster]

Yes, I do have an idea about the DOS driver; first be sure that it is loading from the dosstart.bat in your C:\Windows directory (basically, everything written in your autoexec.bat should also be in your c:\windows\dosstart.bat), and that it is properly installed in config.sys. If you are booting to "Command Prompt Only" option try typing in "dosstart" to load the drivers. If the drivers still don't work, it may be confused about the port address (IDE channel address-whatever it's called, I'm probably just as confused http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif ). If there is a line in config.sys like DEVICE=C:\CDROM\YOURCD.SYS /D:MSCD000 /P:170,15 then take note of the port address "P:170" that is for the secondary IDE, followed by the IRQ "15." I don't know or remember the primary IDE port address, I know that the sound card IDE is usally set by "P:168." Anyway, if it is a good driver then just by removing everything after "DEVICE=C:\CDROM\YOURCD.SYS /D:MSCD000" It should find the drive whichever channel it is on, slave or master. I will try to email a boot disk with CDROM support.



[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 07-15-99).]

[jokostel]

remember to set the LASTDRIVE command in config.sys as well...
example of what you should have in config.sys as well...

lastdrive=z

[awwall]

Thanks Cmonster for the Boot file, will give it a try this afternoon. Also thanks for the other suggestions, will give them a look at also. Will post follow-up if any of this works.


again thanks
aw wall

[Dash800]

It could be your secondary IDE cable is incompatable with the M/B.. some are like that. But most likely you already tried a different IDE cable.. just my 2 cents