i need urgent consultation on my drive connections.
i have the asus a7v with the award medallion v6 bios. the mb sports dual controllers, an initial bootable onboard ata66 and an on-chip promise ultra 100 v33 eide controller. i am running win2k pro, which is the only os on my maxtor hdd. the quantum carries bootmagic with win98se and suse linux 6.4.
given the following storage devices, controlled to boot in sequence or not through the bios, and provided powerquest bootmagic and partition magic are unable to load win2k from the quantum prior to loading an os, what can i do to enable all 4 drives within win2k???

1 maxtor 91536h2 (udma4/ata66 flashed to udma5/ata100) 15gb
1 quantum bigfoot tx8 (pio4 flashed to udma2/ata33) 8gb
1 aopen cd-r/rw rw7120a v1.22 fw
1 toshiba dvd-rom sd-m1202 v1.28 fw

win98 reads, in most instances, all 4 devices though that is not the case with win2k. i spent 7hrs trying combos of master/slave/CS jumper settings on all drives, changing cable lengths and controller connectors, primary and secondary positions, and bios settings too. all for nothing. i found sone articles on ms knowledge base but still to no avail.


H E L P !!!

sounds like win2k is more of a bottleneck to you than less of a one. try executing C:\WINNT\system32\compmgmt.msc from windows explorer and initiate 'new share' and 'active partition' and assign a drive letter to your quantum. it should work even w/out refresh but be patient and somewhat hopeful!

WHAT?! Right on...it worked, the first time too! thanks a mil.

Sweet!!! Glad that you got some help here at SystemLogic.net :-)

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I have the A7V mobo with the onboard ata100 controller (in addition to the default ata66 controller).

I've noticed that the Promise ata100 controller bios doesn't always detect one of my HDs. What I discovered, is that if I simply restart my computer...it doesn't detect it. However, if I'm doing a cold boot (from shutdown or simply holding reset for a few seconds) it detects it every time.

That's something to consider, in case the fix given doesn't work every time. Just make sure anything connected to the ata100 controller detects it in the post-bios bios (promise) autodetect.

-guitaro

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"Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface"

Guitaro, if you have a setting in the bios called "hard disk pre-delay" try setting it a little higher. A restart is obviously going to be quicker than a cold boot, and the pre delay allows the drive to spin up and transmit data to the bus, like "I'm here sir!" LOO

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Huh, what did I say?

That's interesting. I'll have to try and find that. I don't believe it does have that, but I'll look anyway. Just in case, is there another way to phrase it? I have the A7V board, with the latest bios update. You wouldn't happen to know where that'd be located would ya?
If not, like I said, I'll find it.

- guitaro

__________________
"Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface"

Well, I can't think of another way to phrase it. You may have a setting called quick POST, disable that, it will increase delay. Or, make sure it is doing the extended memory test. Anything in boot labeled quick or fast I would try disabling to give the drive a little longer to spin up.

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Huh, what did I say?

Good call, ok I'll try that. I haven't shut my computer down for awhile. So I haven't tried it yet. But mark my words "I shall try it soon to the best of my abilities" Ok, I was just being dramatic.

Laters,
guitaro

__________________
"Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface"