Unable to write to harddrive; getting error message

[garbageman]

Working with a 386 IBM, replaced with another drive. Copied programs over. When installed PC comes up great then gets error message. "Serious disk error has occured while writing to drive C: Retry (r)?" This occurs after the main menu of the program comes up, and I try to make a menu selection.  Help...Help...

 

[edfair]

Unless it was an exact replacement, you may have a drive type error causing you to attempt to write to a non-existant area of the drive.&nbsp;&nbsp;IBM supplied a setup disk that would allow you to change drive types on earlier systems.&nbsp;&nbsp;If you haven't changed the drive type this is the type of error you get.<br>How did you copy the programs over? <p>Ed Fair<br><a href=mailto: efair@atlnet.com> efair@atlnet.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. <br>
Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.<br>

 

[bdux]

What did you replace the drive with . Newer drives with much larger capacity and use drive translation . If the drive is larger the Bios in the 386 may not have the drive translation that is required .

 

[garbageman]

<b>edfair and bdux,</b> <br>&nbsp;The drive was not exact replacement, old drive was Western Digital 100 meg. replacement drive is conner (now Seagate ) 40mb from another old PC. Bios on IBM does not support drive geometry of replacement drive, there are 47 and none match.&nbsp;&nbsp;I copied the programs over to the replacement drive by installing the drive in a newer box with a BIOS which has auto-detect. The drive worked great in the box using auto detect. Can I get something to flash or change the BIOS on the old 386 IBM to use this drive. PC is used as backup to primary PC, runs 1 dos based program only. This imput and advice helps tremendously....

 

[edfair]

Dig parameters from the IBM that will fit within the hard drive, same or less cyl, head, & sectors. Set the drive up on the new box using manual select for the values the IBM needs. Set the IBM up for the new type.(you may need a setup disk, depending on IBM system) This may work. I've done it before but details and problems are buried in recesses of the mind. Might even require a low-level format of the drive and that might be a problem. And depending on drive type, it still might not work due to controller timing problems.<br>And to be technically correct, what kind of drive interface are you dealing with? MFM, RLL, ESDI, or IDE? Suspect MFM or IDE and the IDE is the one with potential low-level problems.<br>Auto detect is great idea, makes life easier, but older machines have problems on the interchange.<br>Have you considered replacing the machine with something like a 486 with autodetect? They should be really, really cheap.<br>ed <p>Ed Fair<br><a href=mailto: efair@atlnet.com> efair@atlnet.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. <br>
Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.<br>

 

[aklein]

Replacing the bios with one that does autodetect should cost about USD20.&nbsp;&nbsp;Replacing the motherboard might run from USD80 to a lot more, depending on which old IBM we're talking about - some of them used non-standard geometries.