Please help - problems setting up Duron 800 system (ECS K7VZA)

[FrodoB]

System:
AMD Duron 800
ECS K7VZA
256 megs PC133
30 Gig Western Digital Drive (7200 rpm)
Generic (Sumo) TNT 2 32 meg card
52x Acer Cd Drive
SB 128 PCI
Generic Ethernet card.
ATX 300 watt case
In cause you're wondering why it seems a bit skimpy, the system is for a college freshman that will need it to just check her email, surf the net, and type papers.

The computer takes an eternity (probably over 10 seconds) detecting the IDE devices. And then it takes almost 30 seconds detecting the expansion devices. As far as I can see, everything is detected correctly. Western Digital EZ install hangs when I try to run it. I then tried to FDISK the drive, but that gave me an error stating that it cannot read the drive. I pulled out the sound card, ethernet card, and the cd drive, but that didn't make a difference. So I don't know what's wrong. Maybe the drive is faulty? I'd appreciate any suggestions.
:|

 

[Helznicht]

Either a faulty drive or you have the Master/Slave jumpers incorrect for what you have configured.

 

[j24u]

Are you booting from a floppy disk ? What OS will you be installing ?

When you boot from floppy, you may have to reference your hard drive as drive D: instead of C:

The floppy boot process creates a temporary drive C: for itself to load the programs from the floppy disk.

fdisk D:

Once you have formatted the drive and loaded the OS, video drivers, etc. you can address the slow startup issue.

Since you only have a cdrom and 1 hard drive, I am assuming you are using the primary IDE connector with the hard drive set to master and connected to the end of the ATA66 ribbon and the cdrom set to slave connected to the 2nd connector on the ribbon.


Go to BIOS when booting

You can try the following:

In Standard CMOS features -
IDE Primary Master - set to auto
IDE Primary Slave - set to auto
IDE Secondary Master - set to none - it may look like it is already set to none, but it's probably set to auto - change this to none
same with the the IDE Secondary Slave

In Advanced BIOS Features -
Change 1st boot device to your hard drive HDD-0
(remember to change this back to floppy if you need to boot from floppy)
change 2nd and 3rd boot device to none
change boot up floppy seek to disabled

These are just a couple basic settings that may help you boot faster. Right now your goal is most likely to get a stable system with all your hardware hooked up and basic software loaded. Then you can use the search feature here and find tons of references to improving your bootup time.

Is your Motherboard Revision 3 ? If the board is black - it's a rev 3 - that's a good thing.

Also, make sure you have the most recent version of the BIOS flashed. You may need the updated BIOS for your SB card. These cards are known to cause problems with the 686B Southbridge chipset. I'm not sure if it applies to the SB 128, but it's still good to have the most recent BIOS.

I hope this helps a bit.

Good luck.

 

[mithrandir2001]

No need to apologize...that is not a skimpy system and it can do a bit more than the menial tasks your friend has planned for it.

j24u has provided a lot of suggestions for you to investigate. I'm curious what OS you are installing and why you are using Western Digital EZ Install. The "ideal" method is to boot the machine and install Win2K from a CD.

Unplug all of your IDE devices except for the hard drive and make sure it is set as a master. I would suggest not changing the IDE settings in the BIOS...just leave them set to AUTO. Boot to DOS with the floppy and see if you can FDISK D: as j24u suggested. What we need to determine is if you have a faulty drive or just some configuration issue.

 

[FrodoB]

Thanks for the replies! Well...
Helznicht - The jumpers are set correctly. The bios recognizes the harddrive as the primary master. I hope it's not faulty, especially since it's from a computer show.
j24u - Yeah, I am booting from the floppy - the WD EZ install disk is a boot disk. When I tried to Fdisk, I used the Win 98 setup boot disk. I plan to install Win 98, and then possibly Win Me. I'll make sure the drive is connected to the end of the ribbon. I'll definitely try your bios settings. I don't know if it is Rev. 3, though.
mithrandir2001 - Awesome screen name! You're right, it is a fairly powerful system considering it's not going to be used for anything intensive and the average person probably has P2. However, most Anandtech forum people seem to have at least a 1GHZ processor. I feel inferior with my own p450. After a summer of helping out friends and family build new systems, I'm going to upgrade my own! Anyway, the reason I used EZ install is because it's simple and worked for two other WD drives I installed this summer. I'll definitely try the fdisk d: suggestion.

 

[uhohibrokeit]

do you have the hard drive running by itself, or is it chained to the cdrom?

it would run better if you didnt chain them together... being a WD drive, if your running it by itslef, do NOT set the drive to master, cuz it will think there is a slave, just pull off the jumper where you have no jumpers at all... if it is connected with the cdrom then it does need to be set as master... this is pretty much just a western digital thing... most drives master is for single also... some WD drive will run ok by themselves set as master, though i have seen it slow the boot process. seems they get it different on every model

 

[mithrandir2001]

I prefer the hard drive all by itself on its own channel and set as the master. I would try not using some special built-in WD master/slave feature...always use the jumpers. It's cleaner and consistent. If you want to put the CD-ROM on the same channel as the WD, make the hard drive the master and the CD-ROM the slave.

 

[mithrandir2001]

Frodo: I anticipate a lot more LOTR aliases to swarm the boards when the movie comes out this December.

 

[grant2]

When you boot from floppy, you may have to reference your hard drive as drive D: instead of C:

The floppy boot process creates a temporary drive C: for itself to load the programs from the floppy disk.


What kind of wacky assed boot disk does THAT?

maybe i'm stuck in the 90's... i still use good'ol win95 boot disk =)