System Drive issues - Invalid drive specification

[derdup]

My mission:
Boot a P100 machine using a HDD I have which has a previous installation of Win95.

An obstacle arises:
The HDD is auto-detected and identified by the BIOS, but then the system hangs and I get the following message:

Disk I/O error
Replace the disk, press any key to continue.


The HDD in question works fine as a secondary drive (All the disk contents are there). The P100 machine boots with no problem using a HDD I have with Win98 installed.

Things I’ve tried:
Checked the HDD with AVG ver.8, - no problems detected.
Booted the P100 with Win95b floppy – DOS cannot see c: drive (I get the message ‘Invalid drive specification’). However, if I run FDISK /status, c: drive and its partition is found!
I tried FDISK /mbr, – the problem still occurs.
Norton Utilities Disk Doctor can only see a: drive.

Is it time to abort this mission?
Thanks,
Harry

[xavier]

try leaving the jumper out

[patio]

And a brand new IDE cable...

[dahlarbear]

1.  P100 Machine.  I've heard of the P-51 Mustang, but I'm not familiar with the P100.  Who is the manufacturer?

2.  Windows 95.  Which version of Windows 95 is on the hard drive?

3.  Hard Drive.  What is the:
    o  Make
    o  Model Number
    o  Capacity

4.  Jumpers.  Do you know about the "jumpers" on IDE/EIDE hard drives?

5.  FDisk.
     a.  Where did you get the version of "fdisk" you're using?
     b.  How does "fdisk" see the hard drive?
          o  Primary Partition:
              -  What is its size?
              -  Is it set "Active"?
              -  Type of File System (FAT, FAT16, FAT32, Unknown, something else)?
          o  Extended Partition (with any logical volumes)?

[derdup]

Hi dahlarbear.

What we're looking at here is a Pentium 100, PC clone. The m-board is a J-656c (Jetway?). All jumpers and cables are correct.

Hdd = Quantum 850AT TR84A472 REV 02-D A0405, (850MB capacity)

Win95 version = 4.00.950 B (installed by a previous owner).

I ran Fdisk from a Win95 floppy boot disk. It shows c: 1 PRI DOS partition 810Mb, Status active, but the system is UNKNOWN. No extended partition.

The original machine this drive comes from (similar vintage to the P100) has a Phoenix Bios. If I auto-detect the drive, it shows:
Type: Auto (850Mb)
Cyl: 1647
Heads: 16
Sectors/Track:63
Write Precomp: None

Multi-sector Transfers: 8 Sectors
LBA Mode Control: Enabled
32 Bit I/O: Disabled
Transfer Mode: Fast PIO 4

The machine I'm attempting to transplant to has an Award BIOS. If I auto-detect the drive with this P100, all the settings match except Write Precomp. This shows as 65535. Changing it to NONE seems to have no effect when I try to boot.

Just before the machine tries to boot (and I get the "Disk I/O error"), the screen shows: PRI Master Disk: CHS, Mode 4, 850 MB.

Any ideas?
Cheers,
Harry

[patio]

And a brand new IDE cable...

Also the drive needs to be formatted after running FDisk on it before it will be recognised by any Windows OS...