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Compaq deskpro 4000 fiasco

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7 replies

by jetwilliams99

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A friend has a deskpro 4000. Someone installed a wb 40GB hdd, it is an ultra ata 100, 80 wire/40 pin cable. I was not present for this little mess, but what has happened since is his cd-rom is not working. also the other person didnt install the WD hdd in a slot, no in his infinite wisdom, he left it lying on the power supply, so i think it is hosed. Woo-hoo!! ANyhoo i beleive they used the new cable with the WD HDD, and the older cd-rom might not work with it. i removed the WD HDD and left theorigonal 1.6 GB in there, when boot still no cd-rom. they are both set to master on seperate ide channels. when boot to F10 setup shows cd-rom(also when remove cd-rom from system, F10 setup shows no cd-rom), i changed the cable back to 40 wire/40 pin cable, still no joy. When boot cd-rom and FDD both initialize. I am unable to set boot sequence or even view boot sequence from F10 utility. Is utility damaged? why would f10 util see cd-rom, but windows wont? Troubling questions from a troubled mind. Please help! I need this system of the table, I got nowhere to eat dinner! John

7 replies

by thechas

The 80 Wire cable should not have caused any problems. However, I don't use 80 pin cables with CD-ROM drives, and some mfgs recommend to not use the cable with CD drives.

While not good practice, I don't think setting the drive on top of the PS caused any damage to the drive.
I have cases with 3.5" drive bays both directly above, and below the PS.

Here is what I think may be going on.

I suspect that the Compaq does not support the full 40GB of the WD drive, and the installer used Data Lifeguard tools to install the drive. If not installed properly, this utility can cause numerous problems.
Data Lifeguard is takeing over the BIOS function of drive assignments, and is ignoring the CD drive entirely.

Start by booting with the data lifeguard disk, and try un-installing to regain "normal" functions with the old drive.

Then, boot from a startup disk, and see if you can access the CD drive from DOS.
If so, you do not have a hardware problem.
You likely need to re-installthe IDE bus-master driver for the motherboard.

Next, I have seen some drives not coexist together on the same IDE channel.
Try installing the WD drive on the secondary IDE channel along with the CD drive.

If the Compaq does not recognize the drive correctly, you have 2 choices.
1. Setup the WD as the boot drive with the Data Lifeguard tools. (WDs utility does not work well if the boot drive is not a WD drive)
2. Install a PCI IDE controller card fro the new drive.
This will bypass any BIOS limitations of the Compaq.

Chas

by richard_barsby

Hi one other thing it could be that the person installed Dos CD Rom drivers this sometimes upsets Windows. This maybe what is wrong with the system.

Rich

by jreedy

When your friend installed the new hard drive did he first install the Compaq utility that sets up a partition at the beginning of the hard drive with the BIOS setup information. I have a Compaq that someone gave me without a hard drive in it. When i installed the hard drive it wouldn't recognize the just about everything. I had to download the files from the Compaq website to install the setup files for Compaq on the hard drive. It has to be a clean hard drive for this to work since it hasto make the initial partition at the very beginning of the hard drive for it to work.

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