Hard drive not recognized after reset or soft boot(ctrl/alt/del)

[MOB]

I'm repairing and upgrading a Packard Bell system(PB 4220 CD) with a 60 MHz Pentium proc. and Intel 433LX chipset for a friend. I replaced the original 408MB HDD with a 2 GB drive, added more memory for a total of 40 MB (originally was 24MB). While replacing the hard drive found the 40 pin/wire ribbon cable torn across three wires (all 3 open). Replaced the cable did an FDisk and format in preparation to load Win95 (upgrade
from 3.1). However, everytime the system would restart, either automatically during the Win95 loading process or manually by me, the hard drive would not be recognized by the BIOS, nor would it be after rebooting with the reset button or doing a ctrl/alt/del restart after getting the message, "Drive Not Ready Error, Insert BOOT diskette in A:". Even after doing a restart from Win95, the same thing happens everytime! The only way to get the hard drive to come up and boot would be after performing a power off routine by pushing the power button off and on or doing a system shutdown from Windows and then powering off and repowering on again. Of course, this is an AT style mobo and power supply, so the front panel power button is directly controlling (wired to) the power supply. I've tried every option in the CMOS setup, which isn't a whole lot since an OEM version BIOS - AMI BIOS, 1.00.09 BCOR. I've tried setting the various
timeouts and delays for the HDD to different values, then when none of those worked, I reset the BIOS defaults. I configured the drive (both drives in fact, the original 408 MB and the 2 GB) manually and also let the BIOS do it automatically - NOTHING I've tried so far makes a difference! I replaced the 2 GB drive with the original 408 MB drive, and replaced the ribbon cable again, all
to no avail! I have even tried removing all ISA
boards (no PCI cards were installed), all installed SDRAM SIMMS (mobo has integrated 8MB RAM), disconnected the CD-ROM and Floppy data and power cables - still nothing different! I'm tending to believe it's something to do with the motherboard like a jumper in the wrong place maybe - who knows! However, after visiting Ray's Packard Bell site (a great web site for just about anything related to Packard Bell systems) I found what motherboard I'm dealing with (an Intel 520r with an initial 8 MB of Ram integrated on it) and a diagram of the board and jumper ID's and settings. Everything matched for default and normal operation.

Other than this frustrating problem, the system seems to be working well.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks - Mal

 

[Klosters]

Welcome to the land of complete horror delicately named "Proprietary Architecture." I had a fairly recent tussle with an even older Packard Hell box. Problems quite similar to your's. However, the machine forgave me for trying to replace its 504 Mb or suchlike HDD with a 1.6 Gigger. When all the original hardware was replaced, down to the last screw, the 486(whooo) ran from its proprietary recovery floppy. Fortunately, I didn't mess with the Packard Bell Win 3.1(but special 3.1, data on the original mini HDD. When the 1.6 Gig Seagate temporary replacement was seen as a 504 Mb HDD, no matter WHAT, I realized my defeat.

I gotta tell ya, having a neighbor who can fix any PC when he's asleep is a gift from God that cannot be improved upon!

I hope someone more knowledgeable than I am about PB's chimes in on this thread. The ugly truth is that any proprietary PC is avoided by enthusiasts. If at all possible. Doesn't matter if it's an ancient Packard Bell or a brand new $4500 Dell Inspiron, or whatever the model name is.

 

[Shukla]

Did I read correctly... A 60Mhz Pentium processor? Your neighbor really needs a system upgrade!

Have you tried using EZ Drive s/w? Sounds like you've got an older bios that will not recognize the HD. You've either got to flash the bios, upgrade it with a new chip, or fool it using EZ drive.

EZdrive is a DOS program that allows access/resources to "newer" drives.

I'm a little concerned about your statement that you can't put the old drive in and have it work properly. Was the old cable twisted in any way. How about trying with the old cable?

 

[MOB]

Well, I finally figured out what was going on. I was working on more than one system at the time and got myself a little confused at one point. I had another system with a hard drive problem as well, and after troubleshooting, swapping cables, drives, and messing with conf.
/BIOS settings on two sytems at once, I made an error - first one in my life, believe me ;-).

The original 428 MB drive did work properly when I reinstalled it, both during a cold start and warm boot (although originally, it did have a damaged ribbon cable which I replaced). The AMI BIOS was dated
11/94 according to SiSoft's SANDRA information/diagnostic software. I know that any BIOS dated before August of 1994 was suppose to have the
528 MB barrier, but this BIOS was supposedly dated Nov. '94, and therefore(theoretically anyway, but with AMI and Packard Bell who knows), should've been compatible up to the next capacity barrier of anything greater than 2.1 GB. Therefore, after installing the Maxtor 2.1 GB, partioning and formatting it without any problems I figured the BIOS was translating
the drive properly. The full capacity was recognized (actually 1.918 GB after partion/formatting), the BIOS recognized it during cold start up and Win95 loaded and was/is running fine. Although the Win95 version I'm using is the 1st edition, or "A" version I think some people call it, so it also has a HDD capacity barrier of anything greater than 2.1 GB. So I figured if I had a BIOS problem, the drive would either not be recognized at all, the system would hang, or it would only format to the 528 MB limit. Since this was not the case, I got myself into a mindset that it had to be something else (i.e., jumper settings, BIOS settings, memory, add on cards, motherboard, cables, and finally power supply. Of course, some of these things I thought might be somehow causing the problem really felt like a strecth, but when you get a certain mindset and accompanying tunnel vision while becoming desperate, you'll try just about anything! I tried a new power supply which made no difference, so I got the last resort kind of idea to try a IDE controller PCI card with its own onboard BIOS. I had a Promise Technology card laying around so I popped it in and guess what, the 2.1 GB finally would do a warm boot, a reset and windows restart, as well as the cold start. I'm still not 100% convinced that the problem is in the BIOS. I still have a thought that a possible logic circuit on the mobo related to the reset, warm boot procedure may still be at fault, but it very well could just be the old AMI BIOS all by itself - really hard to know without detailed schematics and actually tracing logic signals around the mobo. Definitely something I'm not inclined to do for time sake and migraine prevention.


And yes, it is a 60 MHz and my friend uses it for word processing, email, and his young children play simple games on it. It's sort of like a family pet, they've grown attached to and want to keep it. They do have another system much more up to date - a 700 MHz Athlon
T-bird system I put together for them.

Thanks for everyones input!

Mal

 

[MOB]

Sorry, this was a duplicate message of the above post from me.

Mal