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Date:         Mon, 22 Feb 1999 00:38:16 EST
Reply-To:     D1ARCHER@AOL.COM
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         David Hicks <D1ARCHER@AOL.COM>
Subject:      computer Bios or UDMA driver prob. No vanagaon content...
Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Hello listers,

I'm sending this query out to the list because I thought it might be faster than waiting on hold forever, again, with a tech help line...only to reach someone who doesn't know how to fix my computer problem. So, If any one can help, I'd be most grateful. Thanks in advance, David, 91 Multi

I recently installed a 2nd hard drive to my system. My "system" is a Gateway 2000 P5 200, or an IBM compatible with- A HITMAN motherboard, Pentium 200Mhz with MMX and 512 cache, a "Caviar" 2.5 Gig EIDE hard drive, 64 megs of SDRAM DIMM, STB_Virge video card (4 MEG), Ensonic sound card, Toshiba 12 speed CD-ROM, 3.5" floppy, 100MEG Zip, and a 2Gig Iomega tape drive backup. So, basically I added an IBM 8.4GB Deskstar 16GP ULTRA DMA with 512KB buffer. This I attached to the end connection of the 40 wire ribbon cable that the original EIDE hard drive was attached to. To do this I removed the Zip drive, which previously occupied this spot, and moved the Zip to the end of the cable that the CD was attached to. The CD was previously occupying this cable all by its self. The CD cable came off the motherboards secondary EIDE plug. The primary EIDE plug now has the two hard drives, the old one with the jumpers in the "MASTER position, the new one set to the "SLAVE" position. I checked the positioning of the Zip and the CD, and they were indicated as the CD being the Master and the Zip being the slave. I checked this in the setup menu, not by actually looking at the jumpers, but this would correspond with the CD being alone on the secondary cable previously and therefore being a master, and the Zip being previously on the cable with the original hard drive and therefore being the slave.

So, I started my computer, windows loaded and at one point gave a message that it was "building a driver." However, and this is where my lack of "computer Savvy" shows, (at least), I was unable to locate the drive from my desktop. So I thought maybe shutting down and restarting Windows would bring it up. This I did- only as Windows reloaded, right before finishing loading, an error message appeared. "an exception has occurred @ 0028:C002AE6C in VxD VFAT (01)+ This was culled from 0028:C523105C in VxD voltrack (04)+ The message went on to say this may be a recoverable fault, press any key to continue, press control +alt+ delete to restart the computer. Of course, neither of these things occurred when either of these things was tried. Any key was pressed and the screen went blank except for the hourglass wait symbol which never went away. Pressing control +alt+ delete in response to the problem produced no discernible effect at all. Well, maybe the screen flashed or something, but the message didn't go away and the computer did not turn off or restart. Turning the computer off and then on again via the on/off button produced the same result. Windows loaded nearly completely, the same message occurred and ...

So, I called up Gateways technical support and after waiting forever to talk someone, finally got a guy who obviously didn't know how to fix the problem. Unfortunately it took me two hours to figure that out. The two hours were spent entering Windows through the "safe" mode, trying to "fix" something to do with the video driver, I think, at least he had me adjusting the settings on my video display, and then trying to reload the video driver, unsuccessfully, all of which did nothing to remedy the problem. Finally, the guy admitted he didn't know what else to do for me, then asked if I'd hold on for another couple of minutes. I'd already spent many minutes holding on during the two hours on line while he apparently consulted with someone else about the problem, or went for pizza. So, this time I hung up while he had me on hold. I then restarted the computer through the safe mode, tried to return the settings for the video drivers to the way I thought they were before he had me change them, as much as I was able anyway, and-shazamm! I was able to restart the computer normally. Almost. One of the differences now is in shutting down Windows. When you shut down Windows it now takes 40 seconds for the "Please Wait while Windows shut down your computer" screen to go away. It then takes another 40 seconds for the monitor and power supply to shut down. This is a big change from before. But, at least it was loading without "that" message. So, I finally got a hold of someone else at Gateway who gave me directions on partitioning and formatting my drive, and in fact I was successful at doing that, and accessing the drive... However, I've noticed some other problems with the computer now. The button for opening the CD drawer doesn't always work. I sometimes have to open a program called Voyetra that displays on screen controls for the CD player in order to get the drawer to open, Interestingly, just bringing up the program, after I've pushed the mechanical button to open the drawer, will cause the drawer to open. Other times just pressing the mechanical button will work. Also, If I try running a Multimedia CD, the system will crash and a notice informing me that "a fatal exception OE has occurred @ 0137:BFF9A3CO" Playing music CD's produces no problem.

So, a couple of questions maybe you could answer. How do I determine where the problem lies? Do I need an upgraded driver for the UDMA drive? Where would I get one? Do I need and upgraded BIOS? Where would I get one?

Follow up question... Once I fix my current problem, I'd like to switch my drives, slave and master- wise. I'm planning on copying all the files from the old one onto the new one and having the new one be the drive that the system boots from. This may be something I can figure out how to do for myself, but if I could get specific directions I'd feel more comfortable about doing it.

Many, many thanks and if it's easier to call me and you have the time to do that, my ph# is 925-930-9828

Thanks again, David Hicks D1Archer@aol.com


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