Lots of problems... but lets start simple

[Flessan]

Just put together Abit KT7A (no raid) with 900 TBird (L1's are bridged... but not oc'd yet).
2X256 Crucial PC133 cas2 modules.
Yamaha 16X12X32X (I think that's right) CDRW.
IBM ATA100 45Gig HDD.
Panasonic LS-120 (1X speed).
Radeon 64 VIVO.
SB Live Value.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

When I first tried to install Win98... I got lots of errors and had to keep restarting. I can't find my orig Win95 CD anymore... so the only way I can install the upgrade is to boot from a win98SE 3.5 boot disk and then run setup from the Yamaha. When it asks for verification of product... I still have my original (believe it or not) 3.5 disks from win 3.1 .

I am not sure of the error messages I was getting. Different file names would come up. I finally got it installed but was having random lockup problems. Also... everytime I'd click any menu... my screen would jump a bit left then back to the right. I eventually decided to try re-installing... so I wiped the drive... Fdisk'd and reformatted (6 gig C, then two 19ish D and E). Format came up with about 2 megs total of bad clusters!

I think I have more than one problem here. First. Is the ATA100 IDE cable supposed to have a little cut-out in one of the wires? About 2 inches up from where it connects to the motherboard there is a little piece cut out (only one wire) about 2 mm long.

Second... I connected the drive with a regular IDE cable and managed to reformat the drive without errors... But I formatted it as one 45 gig drive. Now... My Yamaha... when I go to load windows... starts the file copying process to install windows then stops and says the cdrom drive is not ready... retry fail abort. The cdrom drive is on the same cable as the LS-120... I tried switching master/slave slave/master. The HDD is by itself... of course... on IDE #1.

Ideas? Thanx. Flessan

 

[BadThad]

YUCK! Is this your first build?

The IDE cable should NOT have a wire "cut out", that cable is defective. Disconnect all drives except CDRW and HDD. Jumper them as HDD = Primary Master and CDRW = Secondary Master on IDE0 and IDE1, respectively. Remove all cards except video, repartition and format the drives using the IBM utility. Try to install windows again and make sure the win CD is physically clean. If needed, run it under the tap and pat it dry with a paper towel or toilet paper, blow off any dust. After boot, go into the BIOS and make sure the drives are detected properly, turn-off bios antivirus protection, make sure CPU voltage/settings are correct, and check that ram type is set to 'auto' or 'spd' too.

Good Luck!

DOH!!!! LOL

 

[Usul]

Wow, having a bad day???
I would

Anyway, let's start with the cable: it's supposed to have no holes, so try to get a new one ( ont worth rm the mobo for it...) And flash to the newer BIOS to fight the size restriction. Make sure that the jumper are correct for the HDD (IBM has kind of a weird setting sticker...) and try to boot with the HDD master on 1 chanel and the cd rom master on the other channel, only video card in .
Try to install Win, and if it's a go, add the other stuff once at the time.

 

[Flessan]

Thanx Badthad...

I don't have the IBM utility... as the drive I bought is an OEM version and arrived in a sealed static bag... period.

It's not the first system I've built... I started building my own back in the AMD 386/40 days .

When I get home today... I'll remove the LS-120 and put a regular floppy in there... that will eliminate one IDE drive. Then I'll use regular IDE cables and try as you suggested... I'll keep you posted.

 

[Wallysaurus]

Flessan,
If you have access to the internet, you can go to IBM's site and download their Disk Manager Software.

 

[BadThad]

^^ FREE download at IBM.

I hope you look back at my post, DOH, I had an error about the drive configuration!!! DOUBLE DOH!!! Took emjem to tell me I had it wrong, I hate typos!

 

[AC]

both mine have the cutout, don't know why, works fine though

 

[Flessan]

No problem Badthad. I actually knew what you meant . Again... I'll have to remove the LS-120 and use a regular floppy... but at least that gives me a start.

I'm stuck at work another 3 hours... but when I get home I'll give it a shot. I'll check the ibm site for the utility. I've always tried to stay away from those things. Hard to remove once you have them. Also... doesn't using one of those utilities make it harder to boot up with a floppy (98 startup disk) and see the whole drive?

If I don't need to use it... I'd rather not. I don't mind partitioning.

 

[Flessan]

AC, Can you tell me where the small cutout is on your two cables? Others here have said it's a bad cable. Could you count from either side (red stripe or non striped side) and tell me how far in it is? If mine is the same... then the cable is probably not a problem.

 

[emjem]

If that IBM utility is like WD and Maxtor it just runs off floppy at boot up. Doesn't do anything to your system, hdd or whatever.

 

[AC]

these r the ata66/100 cables that came w/ my abit kt7-raid...

sheesh, the wires r tiny...um, it's a cut of a single wire about 2-3mm long, about 0.5cm up from the blue motherboard connector and about 0.75cm in from the pin80 (non-stripe) side of the cable, so i'll estimate maybe wire 68?? (i'll have to turn the computer off and pull it out to actually count the wires, but do u really need me to?) it's the same for both cables

 

[AC]

could it be something wrong with the mobo or cpu?

test the hdd in a different system with ibm's utility, that would surely eliminate it

since both your hdd and cdrw are having problems reading, and the video card acts funny, i would check the ram, cpu, and mobo...in whatever order is easiest

did u try reseting the bios settings to failsafe defaults?

 

[mastertech01]

I have many ATA66/100 cables and almost all have the tiny cutout on one lead..it is normal

 

[SiliconVandal]

Every single ATA/66/100 Cable I've ever seen has had a small 1.5mm cutout in about the 4-8th cable about a inch and a half down, thats perfectly normal.

 

[Flessan]

First of all... I'd like to thank all of you for all of your suggestions. I'm now quite sure the cutout is normal . AC... you don't have to pull the cable out and count... but thanx for offering.

Second... I loaded failsafe... then enabled udma for first ide controller. I also set pnp OS to YES. I removed all the cards except video. I booted up a win98SE startup disk...ran fdisk...and made just one small primary dos partition... about 7 gigs. I left the rest of the drive alone for the moment.

The windows installation was flawless... 98... then 98SE. I loaded the via 4/1 stuff and then loaded my radeon drivers from the cd. Everything looks great. I added the sb live value...loaded the drivers...good to go still!

I ran some benchmarks (I have winbench 99) and i had one close/ignore error pop up. I hit ignore (twice) and the tests completed. I have already gone back into fdisk and divided up the ramaining gigs into 2 equal parts. I let windows format these partitions and I let scandisk thorough check the drives while I slept . Scandisk did not find any errors!

I still have to add a 10/100 card and a StudioPC livewire card... but I'm sure I can handle that ok (1 at a time of course). I don't put anything in the 5th PCI slot...just in case.

Almost time to oc now to see what it can do . Thanx again everyone for all your help!

 

[itsmeeh]

first... your hard drive needs to go cause I used to have a hard drive that had a lot of bad clusters. It was partitioned into about 3 drives and they had bad cluster. what i did then is unpartition it and have it only as my c: and it worked fine. but after a while i ran into some problems cause... after all... there are bad clusters on the hd

 

[itsmeeh]

and as of the ribbon goes... just get a ribbon... a buck or two

 

[BadThad]

SiliconVandal - hummmm...I've got like 10 ata66 cables, 3 of them from different mfg's, including one that came with a Promise controller...NONE of them has the cut out nor have I ever seen one cutout on all the systems I've built. Interesting.

Flessan - The IBM drive manager util is EXCELLENT, trust me on this. You're thinking of the dreaded EZBios utility that allows old bioes to deal with large hard drives...yes, thats a btch to remove. Here's my take on HDD format/partition: Hard Drive Partition

Glad it's working for you so far!

 

[Muckshifter]

not on for putting the cat in ...

but THERE ARE cables with a HOLE in them ... they are spicific for "cable select"

My system came with two IDE cables, had to read the small print to fined out what the holed one was for, I will try and get the specs & repost them ... the cable is in my workshop ... can take a photo if YOU REALY want ...

I did NOT USE the cable ... just got another 66/100 & used that

oh, and I know of another person in the world who has one of "these" cables

 

[alpineranger]

Having broken wires on an ata66/100 (not 33) cable is OK. This is because the 66/100 cables only send signals on 40 of the wires (that's why you can hook up the drive to a 40 wire cable and it will still work, albeit not at full speed). The extra 40 wires are sort of like shielding, to prevent crosstalk and give you a cleaner signal. Still, cables are relatively cheap, and it wouldn't hurt to try another set.