BIOS Can't see hard drives

[zentraleinheit]

When I went to start my Original Version Windows 98 (you can stop laughing now 😀) computer I got the following message. BOOT DISK FAILURE PLEASE USE EMERGENCY STARTUP DISK. Which I did, however, I then got the following message. WINDOWS 98 DID NOT DETECT A FAT OR FAT32 PARTISION. So I went to the computer’s BIOS and found that neither of the 2 hard drives, or the DVD and CD drives, was being shown. And was not even detected when I tried the BIOS automatic find option.

My question is, where’s the problem? Has the hard drive(s) failed, or is the problem with the IDE controller on the motherboard? And is there an easy, cheap way to find out?

 

[weberdarren97]

I think the problem is the IDE controller, either that or BIOS. I would recommend flashing the BIOS as a first step. Secondly, if that doesn't help at all, I would recommend getting a cheap (even low quality would do unless you intend to keep using it) IDE controller card to eliminate the onboard controller as the source of the problem.

If it's assembled personally, I would need to know the motherboard make and model. if it's a manufactured computer, I would need to know the brand and model so I can find out what kinds of expansion slots it has and if they can be booted to through your BIOS

 

[Shaun o]

There can be three possible answers to this.

The first is if your running the system with windows 98, and IDE hard drives then the system is about 10 years old.

If it was working fine the last time you used the system.
The cause of why you can no longer detect the hard drives, may be down to the fact that the bios backup battery on the motherboard is flat.

The board then would of defaulted back to it`s factory settings.
And any changes you make in the bios and attempt to save will not save and just default back to factory bios settings when the system is restarted, re booted.

Or powered off, and then on again.
The easy way to tell is to look in the bios of the motherboard by using the default stated key on bios post stated to press on your keyboard to enter the bios.

Look at the current time, date,month and the year setting, displayed in the bios setup pages.
If it is wrong then it means you first need to replace the cmos coin cell battery on the motherboard. Coin cell CR2032

Check this first of all and post back if the time, date, month and year were wrong.

The result is because the board factory defaulted.
The two Ide interfaces may no longer be enabled in the bios.
as a stored setting. and every time you re start the system or power it off it defaults back to factory defaults where both IDE controllers in the bios may be set to disabled.

If you understand what I mean.
So in order to keep it right a new Coin cell battery CR2032 will need to be bought and placed in the battery holder of the motherboard.
To retain any current changes or anything saved in the bios when setup.
Otherwise you will go around in circles where the hard drives of the system may not be detected by the bios.

IDE channel 0 and channel 1 must be enabled in the bios to detect the hard drives or you are met with a drive detection or partition error.

 

[zentraleinheit]

First, thanks for the replies.

To answer the second reply first. I know the my BIOS battery is dead. It been for years. I have been just reentering the necessary information every time I boot up. Normally, even though I have to renter the date/time and some other parameters. The hard/cd/dvd drives were always detected and never had to be rediscovered. This time when I go into the BIOS no drives are displayed, and when I "ask" the BIOS to rediscover the drives it comes back empty.

As for the first post. The motherboard/CPU was made by Chaintech (I don't have the model # on me, but I can get it if you think it can help) and was a replacement that I installed in 2005 when the original motherboard died because it was built with counterfeit capacitors that failed. As for your idea that it was a IDE controller failure, and that I can use a IDE controller card it. It sounds like a good idea, but, to install it won't I need access to the hard/cd drives to install the driver (As I did for my SCSI card)? or do they still use a floppy (which is still "seen" in the BISO) disk to load drives?

 

[weberdarren97]

This is not my area of expertise, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong... But I'm pretty sure that BIOS will see the IDE card and will see the drives through it. Although whether it's bootable will depend on your specific BIOS... Please post the model of your board and if you've upgraded BIOS or not, thanks

 

[zentraleinheit]

This is not my area of expertise, so someone can correct me if I'm wrong... But I'm pretty sure that BIOS will see the IDE card and will see the drives through it. Although whether it's bootable will depend on your specific BIOS... Please post the model of your board and if you've upgraded BIOS or not, thanks

 

[zentraleinheit]

My motherboard is a Chaintech S1689 (the company has gone out of the motherboard business) with a AMD 64 CPU, the BIOS is a Phoenix/Award V.6.0 dated 7/12/2005.

Of course the ultimate solution is to upgrade the computer/OS, but, there are programs that I like and I am not sure what was/is the last latest Windows version that can run Windows 98 applications with-out either going to a duel boot setup or some software workaround.

UPDATE: I just had and thought. My motherboard does have the SATA drive capabilities as well. I wonder if I could get ATA to SATA adapter(s) and connected them to my hard and optical drives? Or are the SATA and IDE controllers are joined in such a way that if one is broken so is the other? And if there a easy way to find out with-out trying to see if the adapters work?