STACKS overflow errors, lockups, catch 22s. All for installing an IBM 60GXP hd.

[stultissimus]

I am attempting to add an IBM 60GXP 40 gig drive to my system on top of my existing Western Digital ATA100 7200 rpm 10 gig drive.

Here's the problem. I plug the IBM drive into the primary UATA slot on my Asus A7V mobo, boot up the machine, and when the Win98 loading screen comes up and locks up, I hit escape and find that I'm getting a stack overflow error. It tells me to edit the STACKS command in my config.sys. So, I turn off the computer, unplug the IBM drive, and turn it back on. Windows boots up just fine.

Being unfamiliar with this whole STACKS business, I head over to the Microsoft tech support site (if anyone should understand the mess they call Windows, it SHOULD be them). They tell me that if I get a stack overflow error, I should put the command "STACKS=18,256" in the config.sys. This is supposed to allocate extra memory to a "hardware routine." If any of you might understand what they have to say, here's the address: MS tech support

I add the command to my config.sys file, power down, plug the drive back in, and power up. It hangs at the Windows 98 loading screen again, but this time, I get no message telling me about any error at all when I hit escape.

After unplugging the drive and coming back up into Windows again, I headed to the Asus website for any fixes or software regarding their UATA slots on the A7V board. I found some here Asus site

I downloaded Build 33 of the Promise Ultra 100 IDE driver and tried installing it by going to the control panel and trying to add new hardware. I'm confronted with this catch 22: it seems the only way Windows will install these drivers is if it realizes that I have something to install, which it doesn't. It tells me that "the selected file does not contain any information on the hardware you are trying to install." I can't even run Windows with the IBM drive plugged into the mobo.

There is one thing I have not tried. I ordered the IBM drive over the net as an OEM. Nothing came with it, save for some foam shock absorbers and a shiny static baggy. There were no cables, manuals, nothing. So I was left with providing the necessary conductor cable on my own, and all I could find in the house was a 40 pin conductor cable. In the boot-up sequence, when the mobo is detecting any UATA hardware, it gives me a warning saying that I need an 80 pin conductor. It does not tell me that the drive won't work, however. The warning says that the speed of the drive will be reduced to ATA33 until I find the proper cable. Could this be causing the lockups?

As for the jumper settings and status of both drives: My puny WD 10 gig is set to EIDE 0 Master. Because the A7V board should support a UATA drive that is also set to 'EIDE 0 Master' at the same time, I kept the jumper settings ont he IBM drive at the factory default, which is what they call 'Device 0 Master'. My plan was to have two Master drives, one on the first EIDE slot on the mobo, and the second on the first Ultra EIDE slot. Jumper settings can be found here: IBM site

Thanks in advance.

-me

 

[stultissimus]

****UPDATE****

I still have the problem

But I've narrowed down the problem some I think.

I found the 80-pin conductor my mainboard kept complaining about, installed it, and now I get a stack overflow error in the 98 loading screen even IF I have the 'STACKS=18,256' command in my config.sys. This is new, because before with the 40-pin cable, I only recieved the stack overflow error if I didn't have the STACKS command in the config.sys.

I also tried installing the hardware through safe mode for the hell of it. Safe mode came up okay, didn't detect any new hardware, as expected. It wouldn't let me install any manually. This happened when I had the UATA100 drive plugged into the UATA100 slots on the mobo.

Something new has come to my attention however. Some UATA users are using ATA100 interface cards on their mobo, much like SCSI controller boards. I'm pretty sure the A7V does not require one in order to use UATA harddrives, but just to be certain... can I use UATA100 drives plugged directly into the mobo?

A friend suggested the idea that I might not have enough power... it does not sound like a power-related issue. The machine just locks up. It does not just power off suddenly. But just to be certain again... could it be a power problem?