Master HD not detected by Bios

King_Cold · Post by **King_Cold** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 1:24 pm

I rearanged one of my computer. First off I plugged a Floppy Drive because it did not have any. I plugged it on the FDD rubbon and on it's middle plug. Then I placed 2 hard drive. It only has 2 HD. I plugged a 20gig HD from Samsong on slave (the plug at the middle of the IDE rubbon, the grey one). I plugged a 40 gig HD from Maxtor as Master (the plug at the end of the IDE rubbon, the black one). The jumpers on my Samsong indicate Slave and the jumpers on my Maxtor indicate Cable Select. Now when I start my computer it says: Disk Boot Failure, Insert System Disk And Press ENTER. So I checked in my Bios and strangly it did not detected my Maxtor. It thinks my Master HD is a Iaxtir of 7gig. I tried putting a DOS boot disk in my new Floppy but it seems that my floppy do not work either . Did I do something wrong when installing my HD and my Floppy or can this be corrected without having to reopen my PC case?

Thanx!

EarthCurrent · Post by **EarthCurrent** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 1:48 pm

Did you go into BIOS to make certain your new configuration is set to recognize HD master and slave, etc...?

King_Cold · Post by **King_Cold** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 9:53 pm

Yep. I did that. It do not work. Well it works but it detects my 40gig Maxtor as a 7gig Iaxtir. Today I tried to plug my Floppy on the end connector of the FDD rubbon and it seems to have made my Floppy work, but not correctly. I'll try to change my rubbon maybe it's damaged? But I changed nothing for my HD. Do you think I should change my Maxtor jumper from Cable Select to Master?

jonmartensen · Post by **jonmartensen** » Sat Jul 12, 2003 10:26 pm

King_Cold wrote:Do you think I should change my Maxtor jumper from Cable Select to Master?

Yes. You should either have both as cable select, or set the two manually. Also, check your boot order in BIOS.

King_Cold · Post by **King_Cold** » Sun Jul 13, 2003 12:24 am

Ok, figured it out. My damn IDE cable was broken. I replaced it with another one and everything works perfectly except my Floppy. I think My motherboard is missing one pin. Well actually I think it's normall but mine is missing two pin. Is this normall. If not, can it be repaired.

Thanx!

kthulhu · Post by **kthulhu** » Sun Jul 13, 2003 3:42 am

Is the floppy cable in backwards?

post-it · Post by **post-it** » Sun Jul 13, 2003 4:14 am

in your Bios, there is an option for normal and large hard drive, choose Large . . and leave everything else as Auto

turn off your computer and check to make sure that the jumpers are in select mode CS and not Master or Slave!

connect the cables back-up and see if your hard drive LED turns on then off while showing the POST set-up - if not, then your Hard-drive is connected backwards.

unless you have these bigger hard drives in CS mode, they will not be seen - by the KT-333's or the KT-400's

Eek-1 · Post by **Eek-1** » Sun Jul 13, 2003 12:43 pm

King_Cold wrote:...I think My motherboard is missing one pin. Well actually I think it's normall but mine is missing two pin. Is this normall. If not, can it be repaired.

I don't know much about floppy ide but mine has 33pins (1 pin missing) and is working.

from TheTechBoard.com wrote:The first thing we should try is to boot off of the floppy drive. Let's check to see that the BIOS is set to default. Any BIOS that I can recall being made in the last 5 years has all of it's IDE controllers set to AUTO by default, and the boot sequence has the floppy first. This said, the best thing to do is to clear the CMOS and try your boot up again.

Still nothing? Let's take a look at how far you are getting... If the machine stops during the POST process with a "Floppy Disk Fail (40)" error, then we need to check your floppy first. Take off ALL of your IDE devices (unplug the IDE cable from the board) and grab a bootable floppy disk.

Is the light staying on on the floppy drive? If so, then your problem is that the ribbon cable is hooked up backwards on the back of the drive. Yes, it could very well plug in two ways and no, it's probably not plugged in backwards at the motherboard because the motherboard is likely keyed. But the fact remains that a light that stays on on a floppy drive is almost ALWAYS a sign of a backwards floppy cable.

Does the light come on on the floppy drive EVER? If not, check where on the ribbon cable the drive is plugged in. Floppy cables are not like IDE cables. See on the cable where there is the cut, split and twist? Because there are no jumpers on a floppy drive, this is what designates what drive is A and what drive is B. If you use the connector located by the cut and twist, that is the A drive. The connector that is where the ribbon is run straight is actually the B drive. Also, make sure that what the BIOS has set for your DRIVE A and DRIVE B jives with your current arrangement. Floppies DO NOT auto detect in the BIOS and therefore need to be checked and set manually. If the floppy STILL doesn't work, try another floppy cable, another power cable, another drive and worst case scenario, another motherboard!

It's easier to troubleshoot the drive & cable if you use another working computer.

King_Cold · Post by **King_Cold** » Sun Jul 13, 2003 1:10 pm

It's ok post-it. I made my HDs work. The cable was broken.

I've tried everything for my floppy. My drive is working proparly, my cable to. My Bios configuration are ok. I did not plug my cable backward. The problem is my motherboard FDC, it has 32 pins and should have 33 pins.
Do you think this can be repaired without changing my motherboard? Or is there a way to plug a Floppy somewhere else? Or is there external Floppy drive that plugs in USB ports that supports loading of boot disks?

Eek-1 · Post by **Eek-1** » Sun Jul 13, 2003 2:50 pm

Look at the bottom of the motherboard see how the pins were soldered. You can tell if a pin is missing or broken. I don't think it's worth to fix the broken IDE pin on the motherboard, because you'd have to replace with a new socket & solder all 33 pins, I think. If you could find a similar pin, a long one, fit it to the cable ribbon & connect to the socket. See if it works.

If the the m/b still has a warranty you could try getting a replacement (good luck)

Alt. you could buy an IDE controller that has a connector to floppy. Or just buy a USB floppy drive.