I am using windows 98 with bios award modular ver 4.51 bios. My problem is with my second hard drive. Sometimes when I save to the second hard drive or D drive, I suddenly get a blue screen saying "disk write error" When I press ctl alt delete or restart windows, the D drive is
not detected. Then I get a messge "ESCD update success" then scan disk runs on my C drive.
When I shut down the computer, complete shutdown then my d drive is okay and detected. I tried resetting my bios under the PCI PNP but could not find the option to
reset the ESCD configuration. There is no option Is there any other place to find this? I was wondering if "load bios default" or "load setup default" will solve this problem. Should I update my bios?
and if so How so I do this. Please guide me..thanks

First thing to do is, get inside your case and make sure that the drive cables are connected properly. The 40-pin connector to the secondary HD might have gotten loose over time - basically a case of a variant of chip creep, which is why you need, every so often, to open up your system and make sure that all the chips, cables and cards are properly seated. Somewhat less likely, but also possible, is that the cable is connected improperly in one way or another.

I would also check your power supply. Back about seven years ago, I had problems with a power supply that went bad and started giving me error messages stating that the hard drive controller could not be found.

And, yes, I would look for a BIOS update. I could be wrong, but 4.51 sounds fairly old; my own Award BIOS version is 6.00PG.

-Joe-

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Alternate email: joea64@yahoo.com

Also, check the D drive for a virus.

Originally posted by ski:
Also, check the D drive for a virus.

Originally posted by ski:
Also, check the D drive for a virus.

I checked for virus using mcafee viruscan and there are no viruses..thanks any other suggestions? thanks

Esber, I already answered this in email, but since this is a general point that other people need to be aware of, I'll post it here too. When you need a new BIOS for your motherboard, the _first_ place you should look is, not the BIOS manufacturers themselves, but the motherboard manufacturer's site. In your case, this would be Asus. The reason for this is, as you're aware, that the BIOS manufacturers have numerous slightly different variations of updates for their BIOS'es and they don't necessarily label clearly which variant is indicated for which mobo. Therefore, you need to check with the mobo manufacturer - chances are they'll have the latest BIOS and other drivers configured specifically for your model of mainboard. This is also what I do; I use an ECS K7VZA board, and when I needed to find an update for the BIOS, I went straight to the ECS site.

-Joe-

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Alternate email: joea64@yahoo.com

I only see one thing that hasn't been covered already. The cable itself...IDE cables can and do fail occasionally, I had one not long ago that caused almost exactly the same symptoms you describe.

Try a new ribbon cable, if you still have the same problems I would say the drive giving you trouble is on the way to the land of no hassles...If you have another computer or a test board, you can set it as the only drive in a test system and see how it works, using a different cable.

That's how I figured out I had a bad cable, mine worked perfect as Master on a test system, so I set it up with a second drive, as Slave, and it worked there too...replaced it in the original computer with a different IDE cable and had no further problems.

One other thought, check to see if the drives are jumpered to Cable Select (CS). If so, that can sometimes cause problems, cable select is flaky at best...Usually the Master/Slave jumering configuration works best.

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I was wondering if the serial port mouse has anything to do with the hard disk problem I have. At the moment I am using a PS2 mouse. Upon checking my computer, I noticed that there was a serial mouse attached to the computer. As I did not have any need for this, I removed it and I think this started the problem of my second hard disk not detected. Could this be possible or is this just my imagination. I then attached back the serial mouse and since then the problem has not recurred. I dont know up to when though. Does this mean that this serial mouse will have to be attached all the time even though it is no longer needed? Or is this just a coincidence? Please advise...thanks