SuperMicro 430TX BusMaster Woes (Resolved, Thanks To MadRat, Tom & Ark!)

[Ornery]

Got an old machine with a P5MMA here that was working fine with Win98SE until DirectX 7 was added. It never rebooted right after that and Windows was reinstalled as well as DirectX. The HDD controller has basically been screwed up since.

In the Device list, the Intel 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller has exclamations by the Primary and Secondary HDD controllers. I've tried switching to a standard controller with no difference. Busmaster support has been enabled and disabled in the BIOS. It should be disabled to work right, from what their FAQ said.

I took out the Cyrix 166 that was in there and replaced it with AMD K6-233. No help. Disconnected the CDROM from the master of the secondary, which left only the 3GB WD drive in there. No help.

I flashed the BIOS to the latest available with no improvement. SuperMicro says to use the drivers from Win98, so the ones on their site are from 1997. I wanted to try them anyway, but their zip file is missing files, so no go there.

As it is now, the machine is running the HDD in "compatibility mode" and the CDROM on the secondary isn't seen at all if it's connected. No HDD is even listed in the Device list.

One question... WTF!?

 

[MadRat]

There is a patch on the Intel website for that. Once ran into that trying to run Busmastering-PCI Ethernet cards.

 

[Ornery]

Great! Thanks for the help. I just searched Intel's site for about ten minutes, but couldn't find it. I can't keep my eyes open any longer. I'll hit it again in the morning.

Thanks Again,
Ornery

 

[Tominator]

Look in..BMDrivers...Great site.

 

[Ark]

If this is Intel chipset, it should work with 98SE without patches.
I would reccomend put different HD and do clean install.
If problem still there, it may be MB prob.
Once you put DX7 - it will stay there even you reinstall Win98.

 

[Ornery]

Boy, I sure learned a lot of stuff between Intel's Chipset Support and BMDrivers! Whew! :Q

I downloaded quite a few things including the Intel® Chipset Software Installation Utility , older Busmaster drivers, an uninstall utility and this INF_BM.PDF,Size:195,088 Date:Aug 14, 1998, which contained the following:

• NOIDE Statement exists in the Registry
  
  Sometimes, on an unsuccessful system bootup, Windows 95 will put a flag in the registry to bypass further attempts to load the protected mode drivers.
  
  Resolution: Check for the NOIDE flag in the registry by editing the registry with the following procedure.
  • 
    · Click Start / Run, type REGEDIT and click OK
    · Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENT CONTROL SET\SERVICES\VXD\IOS
    · Look for a ?NOIDE 01? entry, Click once on ?NOIDE 01?
    · Select Edit, Select Delete
    · Reboot the system
  Windows 95 will detect the newly found hardware and ask to reboot two times. Immediately check Device Manager / Hard Disk Controllers again to ensure everything is correct.

Yes! That was the problem! BMDrivers is bookmarked! Thanks guys!