Strange boot problems w/new Hard Drive

BIOS update, EIDE card, or overlay software? (FAQ Hard disk recognition)
Post Reply
DaveM59
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Dec 11, 2009 4:54 pm

This is not exactly a "drive not recognized" problem, mods feel free to move post if you deem appropriate.
Mobo is a PCChips M863G. Here's the BIOS data, from BIOSAgent plus:
BIOS Type: AMI
BIOS Date: May 18th 2005
BIOS ID: 62-0100-001131-00101111-051805-SIS741-M863GV50
BIOS OEM: Release 05/18/2005 - 080010
Chipset: SiS 741 rev 3
SuperIO: ITE 8705/SiS 950 rev 3 at port 002E
Manufacturer: ECS
Motherboard: M863
Recently I bought a new HD, a WD 500 gig PATA, put it in the system as single on bus 0 and installed WinXP and
Ubuntu from CDs. Everything seemed to go normally. The trouble started when I reinstalled my old HD
(Seagate 320 gig PATA) as slave. This drive is also bootable, with XP and Ubuntu installed. Result:
BIOS did not recognize the Seagate. It recognized the WD just fine. I disconnected the WD, set the Seagate
as master and ran the Seagate diagnostics, the drive checks out. Okay, started playing with configurations.
First I set both drives as "cable select" installed them on bus 0, same positions (WD to black cable socket).
This was better, both drives recognized by the BIOS and I could boot from either. However, I started
having trouble booting from a USB flash drive or from the DVD writer (NEC 3520 PATA, installed alone and set
as master on bus 1). Tried another configuration: Seagate set as slave on bus 1, WD alone on bus 0
jumpered as "single." Result: both drives recognized, but still cannot boot from DVD or flash drive.
If I disconnect the WD drive these problems disappear. Machine boots from any drive.

One note: I have tried several bootable CDs and flash drives during the tests, and they all boot fine as long as
the WD is disconnected.

This is the extent of my experimentation thus far. I've come to the conclusion that this new WD HD does
not want to "play nice" with my BIOS. Fair assessment? If so, is there any way to fix this?
edwin
The Hardware Archivist
Posts: 6286
Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 7:11 pm
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

the WD single drive setting means just that: I am here, nothing else.
If you want a slave drive to be picked up, set the WD for master and the Seagate for slave, make sure they are on the proper connector as well.

(blue — controller, gray — slave drive, and black — master drive)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA
edwin/evasive

Do not assume anything

System error, strike any user to continue...
Post Reply