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Primary and Secondary Controllers

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by netuser 1 view

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I noticed the Primary and secondary Controllers has a yellow exclamation point under device manager/hard disk controllers. Also the cdrom is not listed. My pc seems working properly. Cdrom and HDD are ok. I would appreciate any help concerning this issue.

10 replies

by still_learning

I had a similar situation, but my system was working so slowly that startup was about 10 minutes and shutdown was about the same. I deleted the HDD controller and then let Windows reinstall the software for them. For me this happened with a CriticalUpdate from Microsoft, which also included a driver update from Intel for my system. You may want to check the Performance tab in System Properties. If you are running in protected mode, you may want to do the same. Hope this helps.

by shanghai sam

I remember I did a critical update about 2 weeks ago and I just didn't notice the changes because everything works normally. I knew something is not working right when I tried to defrag and it kept on restarting although I disabled mostly of the background jobs. But anyway, I removed the IDE controller and restarted the system and as you have said, the o/s reinstalled the drivers automatically. I checked device manager and everything looks normal. I appreciate your help.

by true_texan

Ditto as answer number 1. This recently happened when we installed one of the recommended driver updates through the Windows updates. Find out which drivers your controller should be using. If the problem was caused as the result of a Windows update, remove the controllers through the device manager. Force the system to restart so it will properly identify the drivers needed. After removing the devices, the OS will probably tell you that it needs to restart; however, it may not. If it doesn't, use the Start -> Shutdown -> Restart option to manually restart the system.

Hope this helps!

by shanghai sam

I didn't need to find out which driver the controller used. The o/s reinstalled it automatically after removing the controller and restarting the system. Thanks.

by thechas

You need to install the IDE buss master drivers for your motherboard / chipset.

You can download these from either the mfg of you PC,
The mfg of the mother board,
Or the mfg of the chipset.

If you know the make and model of your MB, go to the mfg web site, and download the drivers from them.
Alternately, write down the string of charactors that appear on the lower left side of the screen during the memory test at boot.
Go to www.wimsbios.com
or www.motherboards.org
They have tools to help you identify the mfg of the mb, and links to mb mfg websites.

To identify the chipset;
In device manager, expand the system devices branch.
Scroll through the listed devices. One or more may identify who made the chipset on the MB.
(AMD,Intel, SiS, VIA)
Then go to the appropriate web site to download the drivers.
If you need links to any mfg. Go to www.driverguide.com
They have a tutorial on identifying and installing drivers, along with links to most driver web sites.

If you have an AGP graphics card, you will improve performance by installing the AGP mini-port driver for your MB.

Chas

by shanghai sam

I didn't go this far. "I'm glad" I saved some time to do all these. Thanks for the detailed information.

by silverfireiii

I have seen this problem before and since you can't see your cdrom drive, I would say there is a very good chance that you have an old stealth virus. In order for you to find the virus you could try going to http://housecall.antivirus.com If thatdoesn't work I would try to get an antivirus bootdisk that can check for the virus without loading the operating system. I have had the best luck for finding the virus and being able to get rid of it using the boot disk.

by shanghai sam

Unless there's a security hole with Norton's antivirus/firewall, I think it's impossible to happen. I also used another major vendor to scan it. Thanks.

by netuser

Thanks to all for your time and your immediate responses. Thanks also to Techrepublic.
More power!

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