OLD p3 rig bummer =\

[stech4u]

well... i have my old trusty Abit be6 mobo (p3-500 w/ 392mb pc100 ram) for almost 4 years now. but just of lately, i had problems.

at first, i would get this message just before winXP boots up:

"A disk error has occured"

after some restart, it just keeps showing up...so i powered down and gave it a rest for a day or two.

then next time i turned the power on (a day or two later), it was ok...i got to use winxp and play w/ the comp. as everything was back to normal.

then, after a few days, it gave me the following on the bios startup screen:

"Primary master hard disk failure, Primary slave hard disk failure"

i tried restarting, after the 3rd time... no errors--however, it gave me the error, "A disk error has occured" just before winXP boot up again.

so i made some assumptions, it's either the HDD(s), the IDE controller, and/or the mobo itself. i took out the HDD(s) and checked/tested them on my friend's cpu....and they work perfectly fine (did transfers/chkdsk/scandisk/etc on them). so (hopefully) i have narrowed it down to either the IDE controller and/or the mobo.

so...to make a long story short, i just want to get some input on some of the experience techies out there who experienced this dilemma already. any tips on troubleshooting and knowing the cause of my problems?

thanks in advance, and it is greatly appreciated.

 

[mechBgon]

If you want, you could slap a Promise ATA controller in a PCI slot. If you can get Windows up and running long enough to get the drivers set up, then you can shut down, switch the HDD cable to the add-in PCI IDE controller, set your BIOS to boot from "SCSI" (meaning, not the mobo's built-in IDE controller) and off you go. Probably could get one of those for about $20 shipped from For Sale/Trade, maybe cheaper if you post a WTB thread and make it ATA66.

 

[RSMemphis]

Actually, just set the BIOS to boot from SCSI (which can also be an ATA controller like this), and WinXP will recognize the drives through the BIOS (at least the boot drive) - then you can install the drivers you need...

If you order one through a vendor, you could possibly return it if that does not help your problem - but it sounds like it would.