I just re-loaded Windows 98SE, System Prop-message

[Saviour]

What's the motherboard in this thing?

[street1 (RIP)]

You can get the drivers you need at the below website.Membership is free.

http://list.driverguide.com/list/company454/index.html

[Fordtruckmaniac]

What's the motherboard in this thing?

ASUS P3C-E

Posted by: street1 Posted on: Today at 7:35pm
You can get the drivers you need at the below website.Membership is free.
 
http://list.driverguide.com/list/company454/index.html  

I have got them all but the video. It acts like its not taking them.

[Fordtruckmaniac]

OK, I'm feeling pretty stupid right now. I broke the cardinal rule of "giving all the information" by not. But I am ready to take it on the chin and move on. I'm a novice, what can I say.

I discovered late last night that this computer has two hard drives in it. I was doing the low level format on the Seagate drive. When info it gave during the process, disclosed this.

The primary hard drive is up in the top of the chassis, I had not even seen it. It was up by the two cd rom drives. I was just seeing the lower one which was the Seagate Barracuda. I was just not looking for two hard drives when I was seeing the one at the bottom of the stack clearly. Now I know why I was seeing a different capacity of drive space (higher) that was not matching the Seagate's info. This has two cd-rom drives in it, a zip drive floppy, standard floppy and the two hard drives, and some device that has a speaker on it, mounted in the front of the chassis. Its packed.

In my defense, it has big round plastic sheathed cables running everywhere in the case. No ribbon cables. You can't see crap.

Anyway the primary master drive is a IBM DLTA-307030, 30.7 GBytes. The primary slave drive Seagate Barracuda ST-320430A, 20.4 GBytes. These are fed I'm assuming by the PCI controller I see mounted in a PCI slot on the motherboard. Its marked, PCI Local Bus, Ultra 100, Promise Technology, which by the way I do have the driver for.

What is the point of two hard drives and can I just remove one to make life easier? I have no idea which of these I loaded 98SE to. Which of the two hard drives should I keep and make the primary master drive?

Then I can start from scratch again.  

Thanks,

[patio]

Unplug the Seagate and set the jumpers on the IBM to standalone...you will have to unplug the IBM also to do this...
Re-boot with the (98 CD in the drive and the setup procedure should run...
After installing 98 you can then plug in the Seagate ( jumpered as slave ) After changing the IBM jumper to Master with slave present and you should be good to go...

patio.   8-)

p.s. i would also unplug the ZIP drive until you have completed succesfully installing Win98 and then plug it in power up and install it's drivers. The native Zip drivers in Win98 were quirky.

p.s.s   The correct cabling for hard drives is the master goes at the end of the cable and the slave takes the middle connector, not the other way around.

FTM you are 1/2 way there...keep up the good work !

[GX1_Man]

If you had run Everest it would have shown both drives.  

[Fordtruckmaniac]

p.s.s   The correct cabling for hard drives is the master goes at the end of the cable and the slave takes the middle connector, not the other way around.

This is how its wired.

If you had run Everest it would have shown both drives.

Before or after trying to re-install?

I have it on there now and Belarc Advisor and they show neither one, it only mentions the drive system as being FAT 32 and it must be from the IBM because it matches its capacity. They identify nothing brand and model wise.


I do remember seeing the Seagate in Everest and Belarc before the reinstall though, (I had the Belac Advisor and Everest on beofre trying to re-install) Not sure about the IBM. I was trying to make heads or tails of it all.

Could I still just loose one and and only use one harddrive?

Thanks,

[patio]

Yes.

[Fordtruckmaniac]

Is either hard drive better than the other?

I realize the IBM has more capacity. But the computer is a 800mhz P3.

256mb of PC800 memory upgradeable to 2gb I believe.

But she could buy a new computer for what that memory costs.  


And hey, I really appreciate the help I'm getting here, and sticking with me.

I'm trying!!!

[Fordtruckmaniac]

I just physically pulled the IBM hard drive. The bottom cover is missing on the case. I can see a circut board and chips.

Is this bad?

[Saviour]

Not at all...sometimes quite common in some hard drives.

Just make sure you handle the drive by its sides when possible...and by all means...make sure you're grounded by touching the exposed metal on the computer case.

[Fordtruckmaniac]

Just checking back in.

I used the IBM hard drive since it was bigger.

Fdisked, formatted, loaded 98SE. Got the drivers back in for the video, sound, USB hub, ATA controller PCI cards.

This was quite educational I will say. But that is good.


I still don't understand the point of using two hard drives though.

[patio]

Most people use a second HDD for a few reasons...
Storage
Backups
A home for large files or directories, such as pics videos and music.
Extra space.

patio.    8-)

p.s. Way to stick with it ! !