Pachomius2000
08-09-2004, 09:39 PM
(Sorry for the mistake, this is the message for the title above. Apologies to the moderators...)
Here is the newer of my two duty machines: pentium II 233, award bios v4 51pg, 1998 vintage, operating system Windows98se (second hand machine, almost 'new'), with two hard disks: primary master Maxtor 90432D2, primary slave Fujitsu MPB3043ATU, and a Samsng CDRom of similar year vintage.
Now, the query and annoyance:
The bios would sometime -- rarely now after I rmoved a boot virus called DEFO from both hard disks -- detect a Maxtor Quasar 5400 as the primary master in place of the physically installed and present, Maxtor 90432D2.
Now I understand that the bios goes inside the hard disk to read what the hard disk has written inside about itself, which is that it is a Maxtor 90432D2; and the bios gets the right hard disk most of the time.
Where then does it sometime read a line that says Maxtor Quasar 5400, which is not the hard disk installed and not physically present. I can't imagine anywhere in the motherboard where such a line can be found.
When it detects the wrong hard disk, then Windows98se can't find any system disk.
What I do is observe whether the right hard disk is detected as revealed on the screen. Most of the time it is the correct one, but sometime it is the wrong one. In which case I would switch off the computer and then switch on again after some seconds. This time the bios will get the right hard disk and the boot up will proceed without any further hitches.
Just for education and to satisfy my curiosity, what do you guys here say about this phenomenon?
Pachomius2000
Here is the newer of my two duty machines: pentium II 233, award bios v4 51pg, 1998 vintage, operating system Windows98se (second hand machine, almost 'new'), with two hard disks: primary master Maxtor 90432D2, primary slave Fujitsu MPB3043ATU, and a Samsng CDRom of similar year vintage.
Now, the query and annoyance:
The bios would sometime -- rarely now after I rmoved a boot virus called DEFO from both hard disks -- detect a Maxtor Quasar 5400 as the primary master in place of the physically installed and present, Maxtor 90432D2.
Now I understand that the bios goes inside the hard disk to read what the hard disk has written inside about itself, which is that it is a Maxtor 90432D2; and the bios gets the right hard disk most of the time.
Where then does it sometime read a line that says Maxtor Quasar 5400, which is not the hard disk installed and not physically present. I can't imagine anywhere in the motherboard where such a line can be found.
When it detects the wrong hard disk, then Windows98se can't find any system disk.
What I do is observe whether the right hard disk is detected as revealed on the screen. Most of the time it is the correct one, but sometime it is the wrong one. In which case I would switch off the computer and then switch on again after some seconds. This time the bios will get the right hard disk and the boot up will proceed without any further hitches.
Just for education and to satisfy my curiosity, what do you guys here say about this phenomenon?
Pachomius2000