this forum is awesome, but all suggestions have only gotten me closer, but not to a successful build.

this is the second pc I've built, so probably something obvious. Taking it slowly, from the least possible HW on up, I'm actually stuck at beginning!

1. IBM 30G ATA 100 HD (IDE3, set as master) is recognized at start up, but NOT listed in BIOS (when on IDE3, is listed when on IDE1)-- went through all "auto detects". Oddly, drive letters are assigned.

2. CD (Liteon DVD/42x CD) on IDE1, set as master as per suggestion... is recognized at start up, and in BIOS as Primary Master...BUT no drive letter assigned.

3. BIOS set to boot from CD-- will not boot from CD, although CD is recognized (drive letter unassigned).

4. boot from floppy, "w/ CD support", driver loads correctly...assigns CD drive letter, and then I try running SETUP from CD...WIN install crashes --errors include GPF, when loading files...after which CMOS is corrupted.

I had many of the problems discussed on this board, and I have re-set CMOS, flashed BIOS w/ WW, reformated, re-fdisk, etc. basically repeated the process again and again.

This must be the IRQ settings, or IDE Master, secondary master settings, "cable select", or editing the config.sys to assign drive?? If it's a stupid mistake, accept my appologies for this post. Read all the manuals and posts I could. Loved the working systems post, and tried to mimmic those settings, but still in homebuilt hell.
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KT7A Raid (no raid set)
TB 1GHZ
256 MB PC133 (generic)
IBM ATA100 30G IDE 3 Master (first 2 pins jumped)
ASUS 64MB DDR GeoForce
Liteon CD/DVD (also tried Sony RW in its place) Master IDE 1 first 2 pins jumped, also jumped as slave

Did you set the Bios to boot ATA100 as the 1st device? If you did
try setting up using the IDE 33 ports instead of the ATA100. Than afteryou have installed the drivers for the ATA100 switch it to the ATA100 port.

Hope this helps

Blazer2boy

Not entirely sure but this is how I'd set it up:
Hard drive set to Master and installed on Primary IDE cable
CD-Rom set to Master on Secondary IDE cable
Don't use CSEL unless your IDE cable plugs into the motherboard from the middle of the ribbon. Read about it, never seen one though. Although odd enough Compaq computers come set from the factory on CSEL on their drives and CD-Roms, cables are standard though.
CD must be bootable for that feature to work. I think Windows 98 is, 95 isn't.
You won't see a drive letter assigned when booting up.
Look in your mother board book for the multitude of settings that could be causing you some problems.

I don't think I set it to ATA100. I will try 33 first, and install drivers for ATA 100. Where would I find a newer set of ATA100 drivers? The drive is accessible, just not listed in BIOS as Primary Master, as it should be.

Good suggestion, we'll see.

Originally posted by blazer2boy:
Did you set the Bios to boot ATA100 as the 1st device? If you did
try setting up using the IDE 33 ports instead of the ATA100. Than afteryou have installed the drivers for the ATA100 switch it to the ATA100 port.

Hope this helps

Blazer2boy