System Problems

[Guest Slihp]

Hello there, i have two annoying problems with my system. My system is a:

P3, 750

256 DDR

Matrox G400 graphics card (up to date drivers)

Direct X 9b

and im running windows xp

 

1st problem, i have two hard drives...my primary master (a 40gig) isnt detected in the boot proceedure, yet my secondary master (a 10 gig) is. When windows starts it only detects the primary and not the secondary...this alone confuses me as the boot proceedure detects the opposite.

 

2nd problem, when ever i try to run games my system will randomly restart or exit the game. Ive checked out the processes that are running on my system at the time and none of which are potentially dangerous. Its not most games, its ALL games.

 

Can anyone out there shed some light on to how i go about solving 1 or both of these problems?

 

Thanks alot.. Phil

[Gauss]

You need to eliminate several possibilities as to why detection of the hard drives is inconsistant.

 

Shut the computer down and open your computer casing and physically check to see if the 40gig drive has been set for the Primary IDE (master only) this is usually done by way of a jumper. You may need to get the details for this harddrive specification (from the net) to see if this is the case. Second check to see if your 10gig drive has been set for Secondary IDE (master only) this again is usually done by way of a jumper. You may need to get the details for this harddrive specification (from the net). This answer assumes that both harddisk drives are both connected to the motherboard seperately by way of seperate IDE cables.

 

Boot up your computer and see if this fixes the first problem.

 

If this does not solve the problem you need to shut down the computer and reboot, at the very beginning of the boot up sequence you need to enter the BIOS setup program (one method is to press Delete) when you see the computer display "Press DEL to enter setup" (or something similar) enter the BIOS setup program and go the section on 'boot up devices' this will have a list for floppys, cd, harddisks and other allowable boot devices. Check to see if the boot up sequence is listed correctly. This means that the computer must boot from the Primary master first (it must be listed as the first boot device if you want it to boot from it first). Then make sure that the Secondary master is listed as the second boot device. This should ensure that the computer boots from the Primary master first if this fails it will boot from Secondary master (assuming that it is allowed to boot)

 

Exit out of the BIOS setup, ensuring you save the changes made when you exit.

 

See how this goes. (It maybe more prudent to do the BIOS setup check first to see if this fixes the problem)

 

I hope this helps in solving one of your problems

[5614]

yes, your HDD [hard drive disk] problem will be one of three simple things:

(a) jumper settings on the HDD is wrong

(b) the HDDs are not properly connected

© you have a BIOS problem..... this is unlikely and if you do have a problem with your BIOS you are in big trouble, they are hard to detect and even harder to fix [that is, if you BIOS cant detect your HDD]

 

as for the games there are again many things:

 

(a) the game is illegal and not properly cracked

(b) you are low on system memory and the game must be shut to prevent the system from over clocking itself

© you have a virus/spyware/ad-ware which is shutting down programs

(d) there is some kinda problem with your CD drive, meaning that the game cannot run from the CD

(e) you have edited programs running in the background, resulting in a neeeded program no longer running... resulting in some if not all games not working

(f) you said your system spec:

"P3 750"

are you saying that you have a pentium 3 running at only 750MHz? coz that is very slow, too slow for most games, this would cause them to terminate.

 

im sure there are many other things, i will try and think of them and post em here later [once ive thought of them ]

[5614]

Shut the computer down and open your computer casing and physically check to see if the 40gig drive has been set for the Primary IDE (master only) this is usually done by way of a jumper. You may need to get the details for this harddrive specification (from the net) to see if this is the case. Second check to see if your 10gig drive has been set for Secondary IDE (master only) this again is usually done by way of a jumper. You may need to get the details for this harddrive specification (from the net). This answer assumes that both harddisk drives are both connected to the motherboard seperately by way of seperate IDE cables[/b'].

the bits in bold is what i am referring to:

 

jumpers: you cannot go wrong with these, i had some problems with jumpers on my 2nd HDD, as the labelling was not clear, and depending on a set-up which i didnt know, nor could find out, there were 4 different options for the slave drive set-up. i learnt from this that you cannot go too wrong with the jumpers, just play around until it is detected

 

IDE cable: you dont have to use seperate IDE cable, i use one IDE cable for both of my HDDs... its no problem, not all motherboards have room for 2 IDE cables, and most IDE cables have two 'connect to the HDD' parts on it anyway.

 

make sure that your drive it partioned and formatted, otherwise nothing can detect it.

[Gauss]

If you use one IDE cable then the second hard disk drive has to be set to slave mode (using the jumpers). That is if you are running both harddisk drives on the one IDE cable.

 

You also may use Fdisk in 'command mode' to ensure that the second drive is not set as an active drive.

[5614]

If you use one IDE cable then the second hard disk drive has to be set to slave mode (using the jumpers). That is if you are running both harddisik drives on the one IDE cable.

i was making the assumption that he wanted a master and a slave drive because...

my primary master (a 40gig) isnt detected in the boot proceedure, yet my secondary master (a 10 gig)

the use of the word 'master' made me think he wanted the master/slave drive set-up

 

re-reading that 2nd quote, i now realise a big big reason why his set-up wont work..... he has two master drives.... you cannot have 2 master drive, you must have one master and one slave two masters will clash with each other.

[Gauss]

1st problem, i have two hard drives...my primary master (a 40gig) isnt detected in the boot proceedure, yet my secondary master

 

When I read this a second time, when I made the first posting I thought he had a master slave, but he said Primary master and Secondary master which made me think along the lines of two independent drives. Because motherboards in all cases (generally) have two slots IDE0 and IDE1 for a total of four harddisk drives.

 

We need more information to continue with this.

[5614]

We need more information to continue with this.

 

yes we do, is it a master/slave drive, or master/master drive?

 

i dont know much about a master/master format, however, is it possible to work? even if they are on two different IDE cables, isnt there a different setting for that? surely you dont want two masters?

[Gauss]

i dont know much about a master/master format, however, is it possible to work? even if they are on two different IDE cables, isnt there a different setting for that?

Yes, it's quite possible all you have to do is have one hard disk drive connected to the IDE0 slot and set it via the jumper to act as master. The other hard disk drive is connected to the IDE1 slot and set it via the jumper to act as master.

 

surely you dont want two masters?

You can have seperate independent multiple operating systems operating, one operating on the Primary master say Windows and the other say Linux on the Secondary master or vice versa. Then all you need is a boot loader program (Grub, Lilo, Boot Magic or System Commander come to mind) to launch the operating system you choose.

[Dave]

It really doesn't matter which way around to have it. There's no difference between a drive being set as master and being set as slave (as far as I can tell) apart from the fact it uses different terminals to communicate with the IDE bus.

[Gauss]

The order of the two hard disk drives on the one IDE ribbon cable does not matter, however one must be configured as master and the other must be configured as slave via jumpers (small connectors that fit over pairs of pins to program the drive through the hardware ) or by other means (cable select)

 

If you have a master and slave on the primary IDE channel the first primary partition, on the master hard disk drive will be the "C:\" drive and the first primary partition on the slave hard disk drive will be the "D:" drive. This means that the master drive (on the primary channel IDE0) is the one that gets booted first unless software intervens otherwise.

 

As long as one drive is jumpered as master and the other as slave, any two IDE/ATA/ATAPI devices should work together. If you are using two drives on the same primary channel, it is important to ensure that they are jumpered correctly. Making both hard disk drives the master, or both the slave, will likely result in a very confused system.

[Dave]

As long as one drive is jumpered as master and the other as slave, any two IDE/ATA/ATAPI devices should work together. If you are using two drives on the same primary channel, it is important to ensure that they are jumpered correctly. Making both hard disk drives the master, or both the slave, will likely result in a very confused system.

 

I know that; what I was trying to say that the entire master/slave thing doesn't really matter a damn to the actual operation of the drives, it just affects the actual communication with the IDE bus. But as everyone's said here, the best option is to run each drive as master to start with so that you can rule out actual physical problems, then go on to setting the other drive up.

[5614]

im not arguing, just saying what i personally think on the matter:

 

it is better to start off with [assuming you know the jumper configuration which normally comes with the HDD itself] that you should start off by using a master/slave configurations, this means that [assuming that your original HDD works] you know the IDE port works and that the IDE cable works... this narrows down the problems.

 

further more many computers, esp. from dell only come with 1 IDE slot, leaving not much choice.

 

once you know that your HDD works fine, then you can move onto a new cable and new port.

[Dave]

If the drive doesn't work properly to start with, you may misinterpret this as being an IDE bus error - which I have found is almost never the case. Always start with the simplest situation first: get the hard drive jumper configuration set to master, then put it on a single IDE bus with nothing else on it. Then you can rule out hdd failure, which is a whole lot more common than the bus failing. After that, do the same for the other hdd, then set one as master and t'other as slave.