HD HELP!

[tuando]

Hello hardware gurus,

After installing my WD expert 9.1 GB (ATA/66 has been disabled) in a Pentium II 266 MHz using the EZ-INSTALL software and EZ-BIOS from WD to recognize 9.1 GB (My bios doesn't support HD above 8.5 GB). I am able to install WIN98, however; Win98 (under Device Manager applets) does not recognize the drive such as WD Expert .... but rather a Generic type 47 or something alike. Does this will affect the performance of the drive in any way? To be honest, I don't see any improvement (any faster) over my older Maxtor HD (I assume it should be much faster since it has 2MB buffer). The booting process now take more time since it has to boot through EZ-BIOS. Any comments and advice to make my purchase worth would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you very much for your time.

Tuan

[jokostel]

load youre hd controller drivers

[BBA]

Win98 does not identify hard drives by name. Win95 does not either. If you load Win95 bus master drivers, it will identify the drives, but system devices will stop working.

Win98 does not support bus mastering when the EZ-Drive is loaded. Yuo need to remove EZ-Drive and upgrade your bios to a later version, it should be upgradeable for this very purpose.

BBA

[MadMax]

BBA~Whoa there, pard'. W98 does ID hdds by model in device man. PROVIDED that cntrlr,bmaster,bridge drivers are loaded correctly and bios is set right.

The comp I'm using now reads, "Quantum Fireball SE2.1S" in Device Manager, Disk Drives catagory. I've seen WD, Fujitsu, Maxtor, Micropolis and many (hundreds) more hdds ID'd by manu/model in W98 as well.

A generic drive-type number is an indication of an OS problem!

tuando~My advice....Wipe your sys, GET RID of EZ-WASTEOFDISKSPACE and do it again without WD software. Install a CLEAN sys(do NOT import an old registry). You'll see a manu/model listed in DeviceMan AND you should see performance improvements.

[This message has been edited by MadMax (edited 07-19-99).]

[socalgal]

MadMax ~ by "bios set right" do you mean manually setting the parameters?

I only show a Generic Disk Type 46... and my bios is set to Auto.(!)

[MadMax]

No. What I mean by "set right" is any setting that is not blatantly incorrect. At least with Award, AMI and Phoenix. Forcing an incorrect pio/udma setting to work-around an OC prob is an example.

"Auto" for size params is ok as long as mode is also set to "auto".

If your bios follows what I just wrote, then you either imported a problem reg or upgraded a sys that wasn't exactly right.

Solution=Backup current sys, wipe disk, reload CLEAN W98 (don't load W95 at all), restore sys EXCEPT reg=Happy sys. In turn=Happy socalgal.

BTW~Why do you use "auto"? This slows your boot process. Use ide autodetect/save in bios and boot time will improve.



[This message has been edited by MadMax (edited 07-19-99).]

[socalgal]

Hmm. Not too long ago, I did an fdisk, format, then installed Win98. I wonder where the "not right" came in... (wonder wonder...)

Since I currently have BBA's WINBACK solution, your suggestion to restore seems painless enough.

Meanwhile, I'm going to change my bios to autodetect.

Thanks MadMax!

[MadMax]

socalgal~I don't mean "autodetect" as a setting. I mean use the "IDE Autodetect" utility in BIOS to define your hdd parameters. When the BIOS looks at the IDE portion of your setup, if "auto" is used the bios must go through the detection phase of boot. Precious time wasted. If the parameters(heads,cyls,mode,etc.)are fixed, the BIOS assumes they are correct and just runs with those settings. No wasted time detecting hardware that isn't different from the last boot.

I thought about that situation last night a little bit...Come to think of it, I don't remember if any of the comps that I mentioned previously used auto in the drive params section of bios. I don't ever use automatic detection as a matter of course and if I see it in a comp I'm working on, I'll change it. You may have been correct about manual parameters....I'll check it out and get back.

[socalgal]

That's what I meant to say: the IDE Autodetection utility (re parameters) - apologies for the sloppy wording.

Ok, I haven't changed anything yet.

[MadMax]

I haven't forgotten you socalgal. This has turned up some interesting issues concerning chipsets. It seems that I may have spoken too soon(nothing new about me putting my foot in my mouth, yummy....not!)about generic type numbers and W98...still researching.

[socalgal]

ok! http://www.sysopt.com/forum/smile.gif (I usually jump in with both feet lol)