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Primary and Secondary Controllers

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I seen this posted earlier and now I am having the same problem:
I noticed the Primary and secondary Controllers has a yellow exclamation point under device manager/hard disk controllers. Also the cdrom is not listed. The machine shows it is running in Protected Mode. All Microsoft's Critical Updates have been installed on this machine also.
I have tried deleting the controllers and rebooting. The controllers are reinstalled only to have the exclamation points still there. Please let me know if more info is needed. Thanks.

13 replies

by techkid

try booting in safe mode and removing everything you can in the device manager. Then boot into normal mode and windows should redetect everything

Also, try updated to the latest drivers.

by dmiles

Boot the computer to safe mode,Open the control panel,double-click the System icon,select the IDE Controllers and click the Remove button button,
This also should apply to the CD-ROM if present,now reboot computer and then insert the startup disk in floppy and select to run setup without cd-rom support,after the process,eject floppy and Reboot
If this does not solve the problem,reinstall the Operating System

by zlitocook

Do you have the main board cd or the restore cd? If not go to the I.E.Compaq or Dell if its not a name brand look at the mother board, there will be a name, number or something on it. Go to thier web site and look for system down loads. You are missing basic controllers for your board. You should be able to find the inf files and install them. Windows will most likely not have them.

by mdelyea

Those "exclamation marks" you are referring to mean that windows cannot use 32bit file access because windows doesn't recognize the PCI to IDE controller on your motherboard. You should have received a CDROM disk with your motherboard. On that disk are drivers for the PCI to IDE adaptor. This enables your IDE adaptors to interact with windows. It is not obvious which drivers match your motherboard as most manufacturers give you a disk with drivers for several chipsets. If you have the box that your motherboard came in, look along the edges of the box and you will see a UPC with some numbers underneath it. Those numbers are your motherboard model. You can use that to find the correct drivers on the CDROM or from the manufacturers website.

by cool_apj

Reboot ur M/C. in the safe mode and remove the disk controllers from the device manager. After that rebbot the m/c and when it says found new device give the path of the drivers cd which had come with the motherboard. This will rectify the problem
And abt the cd drive, hv u tried changing the ide cables. if not then do it i thk that will suffice the purpose.

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