Some IDE HDD are not working in old computer

losdavidos50

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Hello, I have 3 old HDD that are on IDE.
Two of them is not being detected by old PC I have there, BUT if I put those HDDs to newer computer that has still IDE controller on it it is working with no problems. (The other one is too)
And the other one does not have any issues at all..
Already tried: reseting bios; format, format the HDDs

Specs of the HDDs(first are the two that are not working in the old PC):
Seagate Barracuda 40GB model ST340014A
Hitachi Deskstar 40GB model HDS728040PLAT20
Western Digital Caviar 160GB model WD1600JB-98VA0

Specs of the PCs:
Old one:
QDI motherboard Legend-V i440LX-2A69JQ1DC-00
Nvidia inno3D Geforce FX 128MB
3 RAM modules (162 MB in total)
New one:
Asrock motherboard N68C-S UCC
Some Nvidia GTX Graphics card(dont know rn)
2x2GB DDR2 RAM
2 HDDs on SATA
Windows 7 installed

Any help?
 
Solution
OK, so that confirms the problem is NOT in any of the HDD units. I am not sure why that old mobo cannot deal with two of the three.

One note from the posts above. When you set a HDD to use the LBA access system, normally you do not have to enter manually the HDD parameters. MAYBE you do on an older mobo, or MAYBE you have to use the option on a last screen to force the mobo to detect the HDD parameters. But whichever you use, do not worry too much about the actual numbers is uses for the Cyl, Head and Sector settings. The important part is the total detected size. In the LBA system the mobo does not send requests to the HDD with CHS parameters. It sends a single number, the Logical Block Address that ranges from 1 to a max for that...

losdavidos50

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Motherboard have 2 IDE connectors, both works and yeah, the "deffective" HDDs are connected to their own cable(A to A, B to B)
I was also trying to connect only one or like mixing them, but no change
 

Paperdoc

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Work with only one of the troubled drives at a time. So, set the jumpers on that drive according to the diagram ON THAT DRIVE to make it a Master device. For the wide data ribbon cable, plug the BLUE end into the mobo IDE port. Plug the BLACK connector on the END of the cable into the HDD port. Of course, also connect power to the HDD.

BEFORE completing the installation, look on the HDD label for information. It MAY show you stuff like Cylinders, Heads and Sectors, and perhaps a few related items like Pre-Comp. Write these things down.

Boot the computer directly into BIOS Setup. On the fist screen, see if that HDD is shown at all. O If it is, check the characteristics it shows. Compare that to the HDD label info. It MAY be that only the size will be available to check, IF those look correct, the mobo has detected the HDD properly and you can go into Windows to see what Windows can "see" about that unit. BUT if the BIOS does NOT detect the HDD properly, go to the last set of screens and look for a tool to detect the HDD. There may be an automatic tool to search for the HDD and detect its settings. IF it does that, sometimes it comes up with the right answer. Sometimes it comes up with a few answers. Pick the set of parameters that matches what was in the HDD label. If this system does not automatically complete the detection, you will have to go back to the first screen and manually enter the HDD parameters there.

We are all familiar these days with systems that can figure out any HDD all by itself. That depends on HDD's designed to give out that info on request. On very old HDD's from early '90's and before they could not do this, and you had to enter the correct parameters yourself for the BIOS to know how to deal with the HDD properly. This system, of course, also required that the BIOS on the mobo knows how to ask for and use that info. If the mobo is unable to do that, that would explain why this old mobo cannot figure things out but a newer mobo can.
 
a 440 chipset? from 1997-1998 or so?

Lets safely assume it is simply incapable of dealing with the 'newer' 2005 era drives over XXX GB in size...or else no WIndows 7 drivers were made to utilize the chipset's IDE ports...

Have you checked the archives for chipset drivers?
 

losdavidos50

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All HDDs are correctly shown in BIOS and in Windows too and theyre SMART supported, I also tryed run HDTune on it and check if any sectors are bad and none of them was.

For the Seagate HDD I have been trying to put the hdd manually (Cyls, Sectors,...) but when I put it in it has shown a wrong size of the HDD(Around 8GB).
I was configuring it by this site: https://www.seagate.com/support/disc/manuals/ata/cuda7200pm.pdf
Theres a table that show everything about the Seagate drive because on the HDD label there is nothing said about the HDD(Only size). The Data from the table is also matching with what msinfo32 show about the drive in Windows 7..
 

Paperdoc

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That "wrong size of the HDD(Around 8GB)" grabbed my attention. At first I though that might be the size of the buffer RAM on the HDD board, and the drive itself has failed. But the spec sheet you linked to says that 40 GB unit has only a 2 MB buffer.

This drive's specs also say it supports LBA access, so I VERY much doubt you should need to manually specify the drive specs. IF your mobo is capable of getting that info from the unit. BUT if it is really old it cannot do that even if the drive is able.

In the first page of BIOS Setup where the HD's are detected, one parameter you may be able to enter is a Type Number. In the old system, HDD's each had a Type Number and that also specified the Cyl, Head, Sector specs. The only exception to that, as large drives with more variety were developed, was the very last Type Number - I think it was like, 43, or 47, or somewhere there. For that type only you were allowed to enter the specs. So, when you try manually entering the Cyl = 16383, Heads = 16, and Sectors = 63, FIRST make sure you set the Type Number to the very highest (last) possible value. IF it gives you a choice, tell it the HDD uses LBA; otherwise "Large" might be best.
 

losdavidos50

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In LBA or LARGE mode I cant set the cylinders higher than 2047.
In AUTO and NORMAL mode it was fine. (the size of the HDD that shows was still in 8GB so I am ignoring it)
I also tried to set the boot order on A, C so it will load to MS-DOS. well how things goes it didn't even passed the HDD and memory check on the beginning of the computer startup.
Same things tried on the Hitachi HDD too. The disks are familiar but other manufacturer.

Also on the Western Digital HDD it is still booting up to windows 98 that is installed on it with no problems.(With the disks unplugged of course..)
 

losdavidos50

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Now the Seagate HDD started making weird sounds when the drive is running, like the head doesnt know where to go... I assumed first time I heard it that the HDD died, but no. I am still able to load it on the newer PC(SMART shows no errors).
 

Paperdoc

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The delayed boot process when those "troubled" drives are installed is NOT from trying to boot from them. Simply, the normal POST process will try to establish communication with EACH HDD it finds as part of checking whether everything is working. Apparently your mobo cannot do that, so it keeps trying hoping that the error message it got was a temporary glitch, but eventually it gives up and moves on to another. All that re-trying is what is making the boot process slow. That only confirms that your mobo cannot figure out how to communicate with those HDD units.

The "weird sounds" you report I suspect are this. When the BIOS tries to read from the HDD and fails, the default action by the HDD is to return the heads to the resting location at the disk edge, then try again to move to the proper Cylinder location and read. If it fails again, it will repeat several times before giving up and reporting to the BIOS that it had an unrecoverable error. THAT is when the BIOS knows it cannot read form that HDD unit. Now, the fact that the HDD itself is experiencing failure to read and re-trying suggests strongly that the HDD has failed, and the problem is not simply that the BIOS can't communicate with the unit. I though you said that ALL of these older drive units CAN be used successfully by a different, more modern, computer. Is that correct? Can you re-check that? If a HDD itself cannot access its own data, surely it cannot work on any computer.
 

losdavidos50

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All HDDs are loading correctly with no errors on the new computer, no manual setting is required and the seagate works fine on the new computer, no errors popup and the clicking sound is not appearing.
 

Paperdoc

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OK, so that confirms the problem is NOT in any of the HDD units. I am not sure why that old mobo cannot deal with two of the three.

One note from the posts above. When you set a HDD to use the LBA access system, normally you do not have to enter manually the HDD parameters. MAYBE you do on an older mobo, or MAYBE you have to use the option on a last screen to force the mobo to detect the HDD parameters. But whichever you use, do not worry too much about the actual numbers is uses for the Cyl, Head and Sector settings. The important part is the total detected size. In the LBA system the mobo does not send requests to the HDD with CHS parameters. It sends a single number, the Logical Block Address that ranges from 1 to a max for that drive, and the HDD itself converts that to the CHS addresses, using its own knowledge of its own structure. So, IF you can get the old mobo to detect these HDD's AND figure out the correct total size of each, that is all you need. If it can't do that, the mobo may not be able to use those drives.
 
Solution