Here's an interesting problem, for a 486-based PC

[hurtstotalktoyou]

So I finally got my Dad's old AMD 486DX-133 (AKA Am5x86-P75), and I popped in some extra memory, expansion cards and hard disk, so I can make a Windows 98FE internet terminal. However, I ran into some trouble.

The motherboard refuses to properly detect the new hard disk, a Samsung SV0844D 8.4GB. If I disable it, the machine boots fine with the floppy and CD. If I enable it, the motherboard detects it just fine in the BIOS, but freezes at the post screen.

Possible solutions...

Q: Is the drive incompatible with the motherboard?
A: No. At least, not completely. I am positive of this because I *initially* managed to get the board to recognize about 550MB of the drive, on which I installed Win98. Everything worked fine. The trouble I'm having now came later.

Q: Is the hard disk damaged?
A: No. After the problem started, I put it back in my main rig and ran some tests, all of which checked out.

Q: Do you have the wrong jumper settings and IDE cable configuration?
A: No. I have the jumper set to master, and the IDE cable attached accordingly. However, I tried a bunch of other combinations, including slave and cable select, none of which worked.

Q: Is the IDE controller or cable damaged?
A: I don't think so. After the problem started, I re-attached the original hard disk using the same cable to see if it would boot, and sure enough it did.

All I can figure is that maybe my BIOS settings are f***ed up. But how do I fix them? I've tried mode 0, mode 4, LBA enabled/disabled, landing zone at 0 and at 16,383 (the same as the number of cylinders). And of course I tried the settings which had originally worked when I installed Win98, as well as the default factory settings.

I sure could use some suggestions!

 

[Zepper]

Are you using any 40-pin 80-wire HDD cables - may need to try the old 40/40 HDD cables. Those old mobos may have a problem with drives that don't play PIO or DMA-2 games as well - is that drive backward compatible with those old protocols. The BIOS may not be able to handle GB drives either. In the 486 days, HDDs were still measured in MB not GB... You'd be a lot farther along starting with a Sock-A mobo as a basis. 98SE may have a problem with that large a drive too. Need to find out what drives that mobo's controller supports. Does it even have PCI slots? If it does, then you can try an add-on controller that supports larger drives.

I had one of the most advanced, pre-sock A mobos (Gigabyte GA-5AX Super Socket 7) and I was using a Fujitsu 4 GB HDD drive and 98 SE with it (may have been using an add-on controller too - nope that supported at least 33MHz IDE), but I then started using SCSI for my HDDs thus the kind of problems you are having weren't an issue for me. But I got my hands on a copy of Win 2k to run on it and that's what I'm still using.

I now have one of the last Via-based Sock-A mobos made by Abit with an OCd Duron 1600 on it. Things are starting to get sluggish now that I've had the same copy of Win 2k on there for several years. Time to wipe and start fresh with XP, or maybe I'll stay with 2k. I'll decide when I come to that bridge...

.bh.

 

[hurtstotalktoyou]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Unfortunately, I've already tried your suggestions (exept for the PCI controller). I know the cable works, but I tried different ones, anyway, just to be sure. And I know the drive is compatible, because I had Windows 98 on it last night. And I know it's not a software problem, because the system freezes at the very first post screen.

I do thank you for your thoughts, though. Keep 'em coming. I must have missed *something*, and I'd like to figure out what.

 

[Zepper]

I was still editing my earlier post while you were posting the above - may be something new there. If I can think of anything else, I'll add it into this post. What's the mobo you're monkeying with? Have you done the physical checks for bent pins in the drive connectors on the mobo and drive connector on the drive, etc.

.bh.

 

[bendixG15]

Try writing all zeros (aka low level format) to the drive in case it has stuff left over in the MBR.

(just had a thought, you are probably in FAT16 for that BIOS)

(just had another thought, find out the max size hard drive that BIOS supports, may only be 2.1 GB. my memory fails me)