Error message 1792- Secondary Disk Controller Failure

**circlet** · April 29th, 2004, 05:21 PM

[COLOR=DarkOrange]I am in need of help with an old computer. It is a Compaq SmartStation, Compaq LTE Elite. It was working fine and we took it down to hook up another computer. That one had an older operating system so we decided to put this one back up. Now we get a message that reads "1792-secondary disk controller failure" Under that it says "F1 Boot". When I hit F1 then a message comes on that it is a non system disk, there is no disk in the drive. Can you help me. This is an old computer that my kids dink around on and not really worth spending any money on. I would like to get it running again. Also it runs on Windows 95 and if it gets working again can I install Windows 98? Thanks for your help.

**NooNoo** · April 29th, 2004, 07:19 PM

Welcome to windrivers circlet!

What is attached to the secondary ide port?

**DocPC** · April 29th, 2004, 07:57 PM

Is there a floppy disk in it? Take it out. Or maybe a CD......

**TripleRLtd** · April 29th, 2004, 07:59 PM

Geesh thats old. Open her up and disconnect whatever is attached to the seconday IDE and try booting. If it boots with no error your CDRom is bad, if it doesn't your IDE interface is probably bad, in which case you can disable it in bios and install an IDE card. And yes you can upgrade to 98. How big is the hard drive?

**circlet** · April 29th, 2004, 10:43 PM

Now this should show how computer stupid I am. On the back of the computer is a switch (actually two) and if I move that switch then the computer works fine. The switches are labeled with letters A, B, C, D so I assume these are disk drive letters. (yes I know nothing about computers except where the on and off button is). We do have 3 computers in the house but two of them are dinosaurs and the kids putz around on them. One operates on Windows 95 and the other on Windows 3.1. Anyway thanks to you all for your help.

circlet

**TripleRLtd** · April 29th, 2004, 10:50 PM

Originally Posted by circlet

Now this should show how computer stupid I am. On the back of the computer is a switch (actually two) and if I move that switch then the computer works fine. The switches are labeled with letters A, B, C, D so I assume these are disk drive letters. (yes I know nothing about computers except where the on and off button is). We do have 3 computers in the house but two of them are dinosaurs and the kids putz around on them. One operates on Windows 95 and the other on Windows 3.1. Anyway thanks to you all for your help.

circlet

You're welcome. Just remember: we ALL start somewhere!!! Being here you are on the right path.