IDE Problems

[jamyskis]

Hello everyone,

I have a minor problem, I think with the IDE interface on my motherboard.

I have an MSI KT400A (Athlon XP 2400+) and recently changed over an antique and faulty CD-ROM drive with a DVD-ROM drive. Both the 'ROM drives are now on one IDE cable. I also took the opportunity to put the hard drive from my girlfriend's old computer in mine (it's now shared you see!), so both hard drives (both 40GB) were on the second IDE interface. Obviously one device on each interface was configured as master and slave, the slave being at the end of the cable.

Here's the problem: A week or so after I set this up, the computer started to regularly complain about media errors when I install a game (particularly large ones like Sims 2). The first obvious reaction was to have a look at the CD - no scratches or dirt, so I did a Scandisk on the hard drives - no problems there either. Then I put the game disc in and just tried to copy everything over onto the hard drive with a view to installing it straight from there. That copied fine (possibility of a problem with the CD out of the question) but when I went to install, same said errors popped up again.

This wasn't just with Sims 2 - this happened with other games like the Hobbit and Beyond Good and Evil, but this isn't the best bit. Given that the two hard drives were already partitioned into two each (giving me now four partitions) I thought that this might be an unlikely cause. It was interesting that these problems came up with Windows XP and not Windows 98. Gave me an excuse to do a clean reinstall anyway.

So I reinstalled Windows 98SE - no problems there, and everything reinstalls properly, even if I have to use ancient graphics card drivers because the most recent ones never seem to work. Windows 98 is only on my hard drive to play games that are too old to work with Windows XP properly.

Here's the good bit - I then went on to install Windows XP on another partition and the similar media errors came up again and again for various different files (different on each install, I hasten to add). Mostly pressing ENTER to retry helps this, but occasionally it gets stuck on a file and I just have to restart. In any case, installing games under Windows XP when it (finally) installs is practically impossible as before.

So I then went on to try Aurox Linux 10.0 (for those that don't know it, it's a variation of Red Hat on 7 CDs) and this too had a problem with installation.
The interesting thing is that no disk scan function could pick up any kind of error on the disks. I have also tried it with one hard drive in the computer and have also tried it in the old system - in the old one the drives were OK.

Would appreciate any light that someone could throw on this. Thanks very much


MSI KT400A (Athlon XP 2400+)
512MB DDR-RAM 233MHz
GeForce FX 5200 128MB
40GB Hard Drive
Windows 98, Windows XP, Aurox Linux 10

 

[SlothX311]

Depending on the board, it sounds like you have two IDE channels, Primary and Secondary. All your non-volitile media should be on the first, or Primary IDE channel. Now if this is just standard IDE, and not IDE RAID, then you will have a maximum of two devices per channel, which makes a total 4 IDE devices. Put the two hard drives on the Primary channel, the one that you boot from should be the master, while the other one will be the slave on that same channel. Now I wasn't so clear about the ROM devices that you have, but it sounds to me like your using both the CDROM and the DVDROM. In this case put the one that you want as the master and the other as the slave. This should fix any problems that your having IDE wise. If not, nothing a little re-installing won't fix

 

[Praetor]

All your non-volitile media should be on the first, or Primary IDE channel. Now if this is just standard IDE, and not IDE RAID, then you will have a maximum of two devices per channel, which makes a total 4 IDE devices. Put the two hard drives on the Primary channel, the one that you boot from should be the master, while the other one will be the slave on that same channel

Yes but having them on different channels as such only affects the drive being detected .. its obviously being detected ... its just a performance issue

Here's the problem: A week or so after I set this up, the computer started to regularly complain about media errors when I install a game (particularly large ones like Sims 2). The first obvious reaction was to have a look at the CD - no scratches or dirt, so I did a Scandisk on the hard drives - no problems there either. Then I put the game disc in and just tried to copy everything over onto the hard drive with a view to installing it straight from there. That copied fine (possibility of a problem with the CD out of the question) but when I went to install, same said errors popped up again.

1. What drive do you have?
2. Have you installed mobo drivers? (i.e., the Hyperion 4-in-1s?)
3. Check to make sure your opticals are operatring in DMA mode



To ensure your drives are operating in DMA mode: (1) Control Panel, (2) System, (3) Goto the Hardware Tab, (4) Device Manager, (5) IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, (6) Right Click on Primary IDE Channel --> Properties, (7) Goto the Advanced Settings Tab, Make sure both drop down boxes say 'DMA if Available', Click OK,(8) Right Click on Seconady IDE Channel --> Properties, (9) Goto the Advanced Settings Tab, Make sure both drop down boxes say 'DMA if Available', Click OK, (10) Reboot.