[RESOLVED] Problems with Hard Drive

Motherboard PCChips K7 M848A
512Mb RAM
Duron 1400 CPU
80GB Samsung IDE HD (New)
Windows XP
CD RW Drive

A fault has occurred on my PC, with reference to Hard Drive.

Firstly, Windows XP would not boot, ending up continually rebooting. PC BIOS however sees the drives.
I firstly thought that the Hard Drive had gone faulty, so purchased a new HD as above. (not yet used or formatted).

Connected new drive to IDE cable, PC BIOS again sees the drive, but a message 80 pin ribbon cable not connected to MAster or Slave drives.

I now have assumed that the motherboards IDE controller has gone faulty, so have purchased an ITE IT8212 IDE/RAID PCI Controller card.

No installation instructions came with the card, so I am asking if someone could provide me with step by step instructions on how to install & set-up this card. The card itself appears to have its own set-up BIOS built in but do not know how to configure it.

Firstly if a controller tells you that you are not using an 80 pin cable
"usually"
All that's needed is replace the cable with a proper 80 pin.
Now as to the PC rebooting in mid boot. That could be a number of things.
Corrupt files ,heat,memory,viruses etc etc etc.
Since you say the bios sees the drive on boot I would determine who made it (seagate,maxtor,WD) and then get their diagnostic software and test it.
At the very least you can boot to the XP cd and at the repair consul try a chkdsk /r to repair the files
As to the pci raid card.
Yes it has a bios and when you have the card physically installed in your system and boot the computer ther is likely a page which says

Press Cntrl G to enter raid bios. I would assume thats only for a raid configuration
Here is the page with the instructions.
http://www.tastycomputers.com/suppor...e_gigaraid.htm

good luck

Thanks for the information above, upon which I will do another check. Re the 80 pin cable, it is an original cable which the system has always used. I tried the hard drive in another PC, upon whic hthe same fault occurred, so have assumed the hard drive is at fault. I tried the new Samsung hard drive, and got the same BIOS report re the ribon cable not connected. This message appears for both master & slave, so have assumend the IDE controller on the motherboard may be faulty.
I now have this ITE controller card as a last ditch attempt to get the PC running. However, it doesn't seem as simple as just inserting the ITE card, connecting the HD & CD and away you go. The ITE BIOS appears to require configuration, which is where I require the assistance. Once the PC can see the drives, and possible boot, then I can deal with the drivers.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by OMGmissinglink

Are you using one drive on the ide 0 connector?

80 pin connections

MB :=====:SD======Master w/slave drive make sure the drives are jumpered correct!.


MB colored end inserted in ide 0, should be colored on the MB

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1 x Hard Drive, set to master. 1 x CDROM RW set to slave. Separate ribons used for each.

If your going off the ide card I might start by trying just a harddrive and not the cdrom. I cannot remember for sure but I think cdrom's do not run on pci ide cards

Unless he has been in the bios changing things, then that likely is irrelevant.
Obviously it was a working computer.

Yes, this was a working computer, which suddenly generated this error report '80 pin cable not connected', for both master & slave (separate ribbon cables). This is where I've assumed the motherboard IDE controller is at fault. However, the PC BIOS still see's the HD & CDROM during initial boot.

I have a question on top of the above:-
The 'TIDE Card' came without drivers or manual (which I was hoping may fix this issue). Is there a location where I can get these? including step by step instructions on how to install/configure.
Does the PC BIOS need to be changed in some way, to see the IDE card?

Is there anything else I could check / try?

Thanks to all. Found at the end of the day the above was a red herring, although I never was able to get the IDE card to work. Thankfully never needed to do so. I thought I'd try a repair install of windows XP, and this has worked.