[D3_Kamikaze]

Hi guys, my mom is having some problems with her new harddrive... Anyway, here are her system specs as I remember them:

Os: Win '98 SE
Processor: Intel P3 633 MhZ
Sound Card: SoundBlaster Audigy 2080
Vid Card: ATI Rage Pro

If you need more specifics, just ask please.

I believe that the harddrive is a 80gb Western Digital.

Here is my Mom's explanation of the problem:

I use my computer for manipulating audio files. Right now I'm using Cakewalk, a home studio software. Drive C is only 10GB, and so...the new drive was welcome, as the wave files are quite large. My program is still on C, and I'm saving the files to my new D drive. Everything I create in D has audio problems. As long as I'm still in cakewalk I'm fine. The minute I try to create a disk, or use winamp to listen to my audio its full of pops and skips. I also noticed that everything I load from D is slower. It took 3 x longer to create the same cd from the new drive than the old. Like I said all my programs are on C....data and files are on D....

In short...I create the audio file in d, then create a cd from that file in d, and the file manipulation is slow, and corrupted.


There we go. I hope you can help her out, you've never failed me before ^_^.

-Kami

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Hi there

Can you ask your mum if the new drive is installed on the same cable as the original hard drive or on the same cable as the CDRM drive?

I also need to know which motherboard she has. If you download Everest from the link below & run it, you can click on the 'motherboard' heading in the left pane & look under 'motherboard name'. This should tell you the motherboard make & model number.

http://majorgeeks.co...tion_d4181.html

[Samm]

Hi there

Can you ask your mum if the new drive is installed on the same cable as the original hard drive or on the same cable as the CDRM drive?

I also need to know which motherboard she has. If you download Everest from the link below & run it, you can click on the 'motherboard' heading in the left pane & look under 'motherboard name'. This should tell you the motherboard make & model number.

http://majorgeeks.co...tion_d4181.html

[D3_Kamikaze]

Okay, my mom can't seem to remember how it was installed... And she refuses to let me open the thing up and look until tomorow >_>

Everest says that the motherboard is a "Compaq Deskpro". Chipset is Intel 82443BX/ZX, dunno if you needed that o.O


By the way, My mom has 2 Harddrives (New one and old one) and two optical drives...

Thanks,

-Kami

EDIT: Ack...

I dont even know what you wanted from the motherboard page anymore, so here -.-

Field Value
Motherboard Properties
Motherboard ID <DMI>
Motherboard Name Compaq Deskpro

Front Side Bus Properties
Bus Type Intel GTL+
Bus Width 64-bit
Real Clock 100 MHz
Effective Clock 100 MHz
Bandwidth 800 MB/s

Memory Bus Properties
Bus Type SDR SDRAM
Bus Width 64-bit
Real Clock 100 MHz
Effective Clock 100 MHz
Bandwidth 800 MB/s

Motherboard Manufacturer
Company Name Hewlett-Packard Company
Product Information http://www.compaq.com
BIOS Download http://support.hp.com


I hope THAT helped in some way or another ._.

Edited by D3_Kamikaze, 11 January 2006 - 07:14 PM.

[Samm]

Yes, that was the info I wanted, thank you.

I used to have a very similar Compaq deskpro myself & I remember them being extremely stable machines but they were a bit fussy about their hard drive parameters & configuration.

BTW, don't worry about opening up the case just yet. We can find out how the drive has been setup without doing that.

What I need you or your mum to do is this :
1) Reboot or power on the system
2) As soon as an picture appears on the monitor (this may be the compaq splash screen if its not disabled), press the F10 key a few times.
This should get you into the bios
3) From there, navigate to the page containing the drive settings

I need to know the following information :

1) IDE Devices:
You should see 4 drives listed - 2 hard drives & 2 optical. Let me know exactly what is listed there. I particularly want to know what size is reported for the new hard drive

2) IDE Drive Timing

3) IDE Drive translation

IIt would also help if you could confirm which model of Deskpro this is (EG Deskpro EN). This should be either written on the case somewhere or possibly displayed in the bios.

REMEMBER :
whatever you do, do not make any changes in the bios. If you accidently alter a setting, then remember to exit without saving the changes

[D3_Kamikaze]

Here's basically what we got... I'm just going to give you the list, as we found it, seeing as we dont know much about BIOS... :

Cylinders | Heads|Sectors
1) Primary Drive 0 ----- ----- ----- Size: 10005MB
Primary Drive 1 ----- ----- ----- Size: 14490MB
Secondary Drive 0 Atapi Device
Secondary Drive 1 Atapi Device

2) Primary Drive 0 Ultra ATA (UDMA)
Primary Drive 1 Ultra ATA (UDMA)
Secondary Drive 0 Ultra ATA (UDMA)
Secondary Drive 1 Enhanced DMA

3) Drive translation: Enable (I think this means its disabled, and that you select this to enable it...)


Finally, as for the version of Deskpro... On the case and in the BIOS it simply says "Deskpro", no version number, though I didn't look very hard for it.


Thank you so much for your assistance,

-kami

[Samm]

Hi again

This is going to be a very short post for now because I have to go to bed (Its 2am in the UK!) but I'll get back to you properly tomorrow.

What I will say for now is that part of the problem is probably due to the bios not recognising the new drive correctly. You can see from the bios read out you gave me that the new drive is reported as being 14GB, instead of 80GB. This is probably because it is unable to recognise drives of that size.

[D3_Kamikaze]

I'm looking forward to your responce

[D3_Kamikaze]

Sorry for the double post, but I want to bring a new problem to your attention.

Now, when the HDD is plugged in, the computer will begin booting, start loading windows, then jump back into DOS. When in DOS it will begin to display a VKD (virtual keyboard driver) error, then crash in the middle of it, so the error only half apears ( If the error is "Omg, error!" it apears "Omg, err" and then crashes. Thats just an example btw )

The computer boots fine unless the HDD is connected.

>_>

Thanks for your assistance,

-Kami

[Samm]

OK, you have two possible options here.

The problem is that the bios is too old to recognise the drive size correctly. The two ways of over coming this are :

1) Buy an ATA controller card. This is a PCI card with its own bios. You connect the 80GB drive to the card instead of to the motherboard. As the card has its own bios, it should recognise the drive correctly.

2) Download Datalife guard for DOS from this link :

http://support.wdc.c...dex.asp?swid=23

Download the dlgsetup11_dos.exe file & run it. You will need a blank (preferably new) floppy disk. This will create a bootable floppy with data lifeguard on it.
Once its done, switch off the PC & reconnect the 80GB drive. Check that the drive has a single jumper over pins 3-4 only. This will set it as a slave without restricting the size.

Make sure you are using a PS2 or serial mouse, not a USB one.

Insert the floppy disk & switch the computer back on. The system should boot from the floppy. If it doesn't you will need to go back into the bios & change the boot sequence so the floppy appears before the hard drive.

Select the 'Setup your hard drive' button & follow the instructions on screen.
If it asks you what the drive will be used for, select the 'additional storage' option.
Make sure that you select the correct drive (i.e the 80GB drive, not the 10GB!). Also, I suggest you select the Advanced Installation option, when prompted. This will allow you to create more than one partition.
When asked for partition sizes, create two 40GB partitions. (This is because Win98 DOS based programs cannot recognise more than 64GB at a time & may cause problems)

In theory, this will create the two partitions for you & install the overlay software automatically.


BE WARNED - YOU WILL LOSE ALL THE DATA ON THE 80GB DRIVE!!

If you have any questions or if data lifeguard doesn't seem to be behaving in the way I've described, let me know. If in doubt, exit out of data lifeguard without making any changes & let me know what the problem is.

If both your hard drives happen to be Western Digital & you are worried about being able to select the correct one for partitioning, then let me know & I will talk you through how to disconnect the 10GB drive & run data lifeguard with only the 80GB drive installed.