TW tech gods, HELP!

R

raggy

Veteran XV
I'll preface everything by saying I'm not the most computer inclined person in the world. With that in mind here's what happened:

Ok, well my 2nd hard drive disappeard. I was trying to run a program off my 2nd drive (slave) and the comptuer froze, when I ctrl+alt+del'd I got some funky, blue screen error I've never seen before about my IDE Controller I beleive. When I booted back into windows I could access the primary drive but the second drive just simply isn't there. In control panel/system under Hard Disk Controllers, Primary IDE Controller (fifo) and Secondary IDE Controller (fifo) are flagged. I tried updating the drivers, no go. I removed the parent device which is AMD 756 PCI Bus Master Dual IDE Controller and tried rebooting but once it reinstalled itself the errors were still there.

Basically, I'm stuck. Could this be a physical problem? Is something wrong with the mobo? Can I fix this without having to format? I would really prefer not to lose the stuff on my computer. Any help would be apreciated.

Note: this is a slightly old comptuer running win98SE.
 
use some partition software to see if it still can be seen that way

edit: re-read your description, that probably won't help.

hrm.....
 
i could better tell you what it was if you tried moving to different ide or another motherboard.

if it doesnt detect it theres, its the hdd.

if it does detect it theres, its your ide controller
 
Mangle-Me-Elmo said:
i could better tell you what it was if you tried moving to different ide or another motherboard.

if it doesnt detect it theres, its the hdd.

if it does detect it theres, its your ide controller
Click to expand...

Well from the system config errors I'm inclined to beleive it's something wrong with the IDE controller. Can I fix this somehow?
 
WrathChild said:
Does BIOS see it and reconize it properly?
Click to expand...
Yeah, when I rebooted I hit tab to see the system messages and it at least recognizes that there are 2 hard drives present and gives their size, that's part of the reason I think it's an IDE controller issue. I'm just clueless on how to fix it. :(
 
short answer-- no

long answer-- buy ide controller card that fits in like a SCSI card



and dont forget to try the hdd in another system before you buy anything
 
Ok, this may tell you guys something. In the performance tab of system properties I get these two entries:

Compatibility mode paging reduces overall system performance.

Windows was unable to identify a real-mode driver or memory-resident program loaded in your Config.sys or Autoexec.bat file. You will see another message that lists the name of the driver or program causing the problem.
Because Windows could not identify the driver or program, it has switched to MS-DOS compatibility mode to ensure the program will run. However, this decreases overall performance. To improve performance, remove the program or driver causing the problem, or contact its manufacturer for an upgraded version.

and this one:

Drive X is using an MS-DOS compatibility mode file system.

This problem often occurs on more than one drive. Usually it is caused by a driver listed in the Config.sys file that Windows does not recognize and that is related to the message Compatibility mode paging reduces overall system performance. If you see both messages, see the Help for the Compatibility mode paging reduces overall system performance message first.
If you only see the message Drive X is using an MS-DOS compatibility mode file system on one drive, that drive is using an MS-DOS compatibility (real-mode) driver, which may reduce that drive’s performance. Contact your hardware manufacturer to see if an updated driver is available for your drive. If not, the drive’s performance may be less than optimal, but you can still use it.
 
Boot into safe mode and check out your device manager.

Remove all the Primary and Secondary IDE controllers listed there.

Reboot and let Windows re-load the drivers (uncheck all boxes in the Where to search prompt, so it loads the default drivers).

Note that you cannot remove the IDE controller entry in device manager in Win98, just the Primary/Secondary controller entries. If the above doesn't work, and you're willing to endure a little more work, do this.

(Make a backup of your registry first, and usual warnings apply for not messing with registry if you don't know what you're doing. Make sure you have drivers for all your hardware handy in case.)
Reboot into safe mode, open Regedit, and delete the Enum heading. Yes, all of it including sub-entries. This will delete ALL entries in your device manager, go check device manager to see if it worked. It should be blank if it did.

Now reboot and let Windows re-load all your drivers. This will take 3-4 reboots depending on your hardware. That should correct the issue, and clean up the fubar Win98 device manager as well.

Since your BIOS see the device fine, it's most likely software related.
 
WrathChild said:
Boot into safe mode and check out your device manager.

Remove all the Primary and Secondary IDE controllers listed there.

Reboot and let Windows re-load the drivers (uncheck all boxes in the Where to search prompt, so it loads the default drivers).

Note that you cannot remove the IDE controller entry in device manager in Win98, just the Primary/Secondary controller entries. If the above doesn't work, and you're willing to endure a little more work, do this.

(Make a backup of your registry first, and usual warnings apply for not messing with registry if you don't know what you're doing. Make sure you have drivers for all your hardware handy in case.)
Reboot into safe mode, open Regedit, and delete the Enum heading. Yes, all of it including sub-entries. This will delete ALL entries in your device manager, go check device manager to see if it worked. It should be blank if it did.

Now reboot and let Windows re-load all your drivers. This will take 3-4 reboots depending on your hardware. That should correct the issue, and clean up the fubar Win98 device manager as well.

Since your BIOS see the device fine, it's most likely software related.
Click to expand...

1st, dumb question, how do I make windows boot into safe mode?
2nd, does it matter that it's in safe mode? I've alreday tried removing the primary and secondary ide controllers but couldn't. It says that I have to remove the parent device with is the master dual ide controller (which I've already tried). When windows reboots and reinstalls it, the errors on the primary and secondary still remain. Will booting in safe mode allow me to remove those independanly of the parent device?
 
Yeah you really need to boot into safe mode, you will see why once you view the Win98 device manager from safe mode. You will likely see duplicate entries for devices there.

Some really ragged out PC's I've worked on in Win98 have had 8 or more entries for a single device when viewed in safe mode. This could very well be the cause of the problem.

Anyways, to get into safe mode, you need to keep tapping F8 after the POST screen, just before the Loading Windows 98 screen appears. You will get a boot option menu, select 3. Safe Mode.

(note its normal for your video to be at 640x480 with 16 colors in safe mode)

Now open your device manager and check out all the duplicate entries, most likely every device will be listed more than once, and you will probably see devices listed that aren't even connected to the machine anymore. This is a problem with Win98, and is why I recommend deleting the Enum key in registry to completely remove everything from the device manager. However, it sounds like you aren't familiar enough with those kinds of things to attempt that, it could end up more trouble than you want.

Just try removing the devices from safe mode device manager first, good chance it will work. And yes, it's normal you can't remove the Primary/Secondary controller listings (parent device error message), you can only remove the Master IDE controller this way. Sorry, I got those reversed in my previous post.
 
WrathChild said:
Yeah you really need to boot into safe mode, you will see why once you view the Win98 device manager from safe mode. You will likely see duplicate entries for devices there.

Some really ragged out PC's I've worked on in Win98 have had 8 or more entries for a single device when viewed in safe mode. This could very well be the cause of the problem.

Anyways, to get into safe mode, you need to keep tapping F8 after the POST screen, just before the Loading Windows 98 screen appears. You will get a boot option menu, select 3. Safe Mode.

(note its normal for your video to be at 640x480 with 16 colors in safe mode)

Now open your device manager and check out all the duplicate entries, most likely every device will be listed more than once, and you will probably see devices listed that aren't even connected to the machine anymore. This is a problem with Win98, and is why I recommend deleting the Enum key in registry to completely remove everything from the device manager. However, it sounds like you aren't familiar enough with those kinds of things to attempt that, it could end up more trouble than you want.

Just try removing the devices from safe mode device manager first, good chance it will work. And yes, it's normal you can't remove the Primary/Secondary controller listings (parent device error message), you can only remove the Master IDE controller this way. Sorry, I got those reversed in my previous post.
Click to expand...

Yep, tried it in safe mode and I did in fact have 3 entries each for primary and secondary ide controllers. But I still coudln't remove them individually, so I removed the parent device. After rebooting and the stuff reinstalling itself I still see the same errors. I'm becomming very frustrated.
 
mmmmk, which files do I need to back up for the registry in case I mess something up in regedit?
 
Sorry went away for a bit :D

First, go to device manager and double click the IDE controllers that are flagged to see what the problem is. It should be listed on the first page there.

Otherwise, into the registry you go.

Ok, go to Start, Run, type in Regedit and enter.

In Regedit window, go to File, and Export. Put in a name, like backup.reg or whatever. Note where you are saving it at, and make sure the button at the bottom is clicked for "All" fields to export. Then save, this will make a backup of your registry.

In the left pane you will see fields such as HK_LocalMachine and so on. Im going off memory a bit, since I'm on XP here and the fields are different, but the Enum key should be under HK_Local_Machine. You will need to double click that heading to expand it, and Enum should be listed under it. If it's not there then look under the next heading, it's directly under one of the main headers.

Single click it to highlight it, and hit delete.

Reboot, and you will have to go through some Windows has detected new hardware cycles. Most of the device drivers should be located automatically, those that don't will usually be found in one of the following areas:
(assuming C is your primary hard drive)

C:\windows
C:\windows\system
C:\windows\system32

For device drivers that aren't located automatically, try those locations. Worst case scenario is you will have to download drivers for these devices. MAKE SURE before you start you have drivers for your network card (or modem if you're on dialup) so you can get online to download any drivers you need.

You will have to reboot several times during this, just keep going until you get to desktop finally, then check it.
 
I tried wiping the whole registry and reinstalling from scratch. Unfortunately, the same errors appeared after it was done. I'm starting to get the idea that this is not a software problem. I don't really know what else to do. Dude, I guess I should start looking into getting a Dell :( :( :(
 
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