Primary Master AutoDetect Failure on Reboot

[DarkSab3r]

I recently aquired a Shuttle AK32 v2.1 motherboard upgrade, and it is working fine except for one somewhat annoying problem. Whenever i restart (either by restarting from windows XP or pressing the reset button at any given time) it gets to the IDE Autodection part of the bios after checking ram and sits there for about 20 seconds, then pops up the detected drives. next to Primary Master it says NONE, but the rest of my hard drives/cd-rom drives are detected just fine. So far, what ive had to do is press Del to go to my BIOS, then Standard BIOS Features and select my Primary Master then press IDE HDD auto detection. It detects it JUST FINE, but Every time i restart i have to go into my BIOS and manually hit auto-detect then Save and Exit settings. Its so annoying, so if anyone has any suggestions on what might be the problem please lemme know.
Thanks.


System: AK32 Mobo (there are no bios flash updates on
the website so i must have the 'newest' version).

Primary HDD: IBM Deskstar 80GB (IC35L080AVVA07-0)
Secondary HDD: IBM Deskstar 40GB (IBM-DTLA-307045)
256 Megs of DDR 266 Ram.
PNY Geforce 3.
SoundBlaster Live.

 

[thebigguy128]

You don't say what BIOS you have, but there should be a place in your BIOS to turn off auto-detection. You should be okay if you change autodetect to manual...then do the ide detection in bios, exit saving changes.
On my Award bios, on the basic cmos setup screen, if I highlight my primary master and then hit enter, a new screen comes up with the autodetect feature where it can be disabled.

Dana

 

[DarkSab3r]

Thanks for the ideas,
Yes, my BIOS is Award. I tried setting IDE Primary Master setting to Manual, but it still doesnt work. It does something different though. It finds the hard drive, but then displays that the hard drive is PIO mode 0 or something like that and then proceeds to give an error and does not start windows xp. Im not real familiar with what pio is so im not sure what to think about that. I also noticed theres a thing in the BIOS called Access Mode where i can set it up to be LBA, Large, CHS or Auto. if i set it to LBA or Large it changes the cylinder info to an incorrect amount. If i try CHS(whatever that might be) it lets me manually set up my numbers, but when i try that it does that same PIO mode 0 thing. Ugh, very frustrating =/
Thanks for you help though.

 

[gargouille]

Have you tried clearing NVRAM (if such a setting exists in the BIOS) or jumpering the board to clear the BIOS?
Also, make sure you're using an 80 wire IDE cable

(usually want to write down what the settings are before clearing it, so you can restore them) DO power down and unplug AC from the PSU when you jumper it...just move the jumper a couple of seconds and put it back.

When you set the board up, did you format/reinstall the OS?
LBA should have been enabled in the format procedure. That new a hard drive should be PIO mode 4...at least higher/faster than 0.

If you want to know about PIO mode...here's a link:

http://www.computercraft.com/docs/evsterms.shtml#PIO

 

[DarkSab3r]

I havent tried totally clearing the BIOS. I have tried the load failsafe and load optimal settings. Neither worked.

I might try the jumper to clear the BIOS totally, but it sounds troublesome...

Now thats an interesting point. I did NOT reformat/reinstall windows XP. I just popped my old motherboard out and put this one in along with a new cpu chip and ddr ram. Everything seemed to work ok as far as windows XP autodetecting the new hardware. Are there other problems that i need to be aware of ? I really didnt want to have to reformat because i have like 70 gigs of stuff that i cant really get rid of. Would simply reinstalling windows XP help anything? Or do i have to format?.

Also, theres a setting in my BIOS where i can set the PIO mode for any device. Maybe ill try forcing my primary master to PIO 4.

ill try that and reply what happens.

 

[Cindy1]

Try replacing the cmos battery it may not be strong enough to hold the configs. after reboot. Just a thought.
Cindy

 

[DarkSab3r]

thanks for the suggestion. I dont think that its the problem because the battery holds all of the other BIOS info ok. and the system Clock/date is always correct.

Update---
Alright, ive done a little eliminative troubleshooting.
I checked my cable, it says ATA-66 on it, so i replaced that with a '33/66/100' cable that came with the AK32 motherboard, which looks exactly the same as the one that says ATA-66 on it, but oh well. The problem still occurs. =/

After that, I unplugged my IBM Deskstar 40GB (thats my Primary Slave, on the same channel as the one that doesnt get autodetected) and the problem went away! it restarts and detects the 80GB IBM drive just fine as long as i dont have the 40 gb drive plugged into the slave port. sigh... while this is somewhat good news, its somewhat unacceptable as well because thats 40 gigs of info that i cant have.

Any other suggestions?

 

[smah]

Double check the jumper on the 80 GB master. I don't know about IBM's, but some drives come from the manufacturer jumpered with 'single drive' setting which is not the same as master. You want this to be jumpered for master.

 

[DarkSab3r]

Hmmm ill check that...
alright the jumper settings for the IBM are:
Device 0(Master)
Device 1(Slave)
Cable Select
Device 1(Slave)Present - whatever that means

Then repeats the same options for a 15 gb clip
Then some settings for 2 gb clip...
And Auto Spin disable... dunno about those last 3.

I dont think that it is the problem because basically all i did here was pop out my older athlon motherboard(with 900 Mhz cpu) and put this AK32 (with XP 1700+ cpu)right in. I didnt switch anything around or move anything else, and it all worked great with my previous mobo with 900mhz athlon chip. =/
Confusing...so confusing.

 

[smah]

Actually, you should check the jumper on both drives. The 80 should be jumpered for master, the 40 should be jumpered for slave. While you're looking at the back of these drives for the for the jumper positions, pull the IDE cable and look at the pins in the connector - everything OK?

 

[DarkSab3r]

yeah its all good. cuz it worked just fine with my old set up. and keep in mind that it works just fine when i power my computer on from a total shutdown. it starts messing up when i restart.

 

[DarkSab3r]

alright guys,
i think i know the problem...more or less.
i played around with it a bit more, and have found that its a problem with the 40 GB IBM drive. I switched it out with a western digital 40 gb drive and it restarted and detected both just fine. How very odd. If i move the drive over to be the secondary IDE slave it works just fine. so the problem is if i have both hard drives on the same channel as each other. So...i think i have to do a lot of moving around now. sigh. Could any of you recommend the best setup? heres what ive got.

1) The IBM 80GB (the boot drive)
2) The IBM 40GB which cant be on the same channel as the 80
3) Creative CD-RW 12x
4) Creative PC-DVD 6x

I only have one ATA 100 Channel i think so i want my main hard drive on that one...but which cd drive should i put as the slave? Its annoying because im going to take a hit in performance as the 40 gig will no longer be ATA 100 =/