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IDE issues on my Gateway P%-90

H

Hedgie

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Joined
Jan 11, 2015
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13
Location
NM
Hello Everyone,

Yesterday I started working on what I plan to be an IBM DOS 7 computer. It is a Gateway P5-90 and I figured it would be a great choice for that era of software. After getting everything hooked up I noticed some oddities that are throwing me off in finishing this project. I am not sure if the ide controller has gone bad or if I just simply failed to properly configure the drives, but all my ide drives aren't showing up in the system bios. Being a machine from the windows 3.1 and DOS era, I am not completely familiar with the limitations and problems of this machine. I've tried reconfiguring the jumpers on each drive but still to no success. On channel 0 I am trying to setup a WD 200 20gig hdd. On channel 1 I am trying to setup a DVD-RW drive (Yes I know it's a bit overkill but it's pretty hard to find anything less for IDE these days) as the master and a Iomega Zip 100 drive as the slave. Can anyone give me a hand. I kind of feel a bit of an idiot on getting this thing setup considering I can setup a socket 7 machine and newer with minimal problems.
 
The harddrive is an ATA device and the DVD-RW and Zip drives are both ATAPI devices. BIOSes back then didn't support ATAPI devices so if it only detects the harddrive then that's normal. You will need to use drivers to be able to use the DVD and Zip drives.
 
Just a reminder those old systems didn't have cable select for master/slave so you needed to jumper them for that. I also find using old 40 pin IDE cables is better then the newer 80 pin IDE for some systems. As mentioned you will need drivers for anything other then HDs (ATA).
 
Since no one else mentioned it yet, I should also point out, a 20GB hard drive on a P90 may be beyond its BIOS limits, it could have an 8.1GB limitation. Not a guarantee, but something to be careful of with this setup, you may need a DDO (such as OnTrack Disk Manager) or secondary BIOS (such as XT-IDE BIOS) to see all of the drive's capacity, if you do not need all 20GB and are not worried about wasted unusable space, not really an issue.

May be a non-issue, your BIOS may be new enough, just something to keep your eye on ;-)
 
Cool :) Glad you posted again too. Does the BIOS see the drives? You may also try connecting only one device at a time to troubleshoot whether it can see it then. I'm trying to remember (it's been a long time) I used to have to troubleshoot those systems and I do remember something dumb with drives hanging the system at boot but I think that was resolved with a bios update.
 
FWIW, even if your BIOS supports it, DOS 6.22 and earlier does not support Int13h extensions and cannot use hard disks over 8.4 GB in size.
 
The ATAPI sounds like it maybe part of the problem but the hard drive it self isn't being detected as well. I will have to go through and see if that is apart of the problem. I would assume that even at 20 gigs the hdd still would be detected. Plus using IBM Dos 7 which is after the MS and IBM split up.
 
Hedgie said:
The ATAPI sounds like it maybe part of the problem but the hard drive it self isn't being detected as well. I will have to go through and see if that is apart of the problem. I would assume that even at 20 gigs the hdd still would be detected. Plus using IBM Dos 7 which is after the MS and IBM split up.
Click to expand...

HD should still be detected, just not all usable, check cables and jumpers. Typical setup would have HD jumpered as MASTER, some have specific setting for "MASTER without a slave", use that setting if its alone on that IDE channel. If HD isn't alone on the IDE channel, be sure its companion is jumpered as a SLAVE, though if you only have 3 IDE devices, I would strongly suggest the HD be alone on its own channel, let the DVD and ZIP share the secondary IDE channel.
 
That is exactly what I have done so far. Other drives on channel 1 and the hdd on channel 0 and trying to set it as master. I think I need to fuss jumpers some more and if that fails I'll try a 13 gig drive and see if that makes any difference.
 
Hedgie said:
That is exactly what I have done so far. Other drives on channel 1 and the hdd on channel 0 and trying to set it as master. I think I need to fuss jumpers some more and if that fails I'll try a 13 gig drive and see if that makes any difference.
Click to expand...

What is the model number on your hard drive, one of us could look up the jumper config for you, some even have jumper settings to limit capacity to 8gb to work on older BIOS's.

EDIT: Not saying you can't figure out the jumpers yourself, I just mean to say, sometimes it helps to have another set of eyes on it so to speak ;-)
 
Hedgie said:
That is exactly what I have done so far. Other drives on channel 1 and the hdd on channel 0 and trying to set it as master. I think I need to fuss jumpers some more and if that fails I'll try a 13 gig drive and see if that makes any difference.
Click to expand...
There is no tangible difference between 13GB and 20GB so you'd just be spinning your wheels.

If you want to try something meaningful try a drive < 8.4GB or < 528 MB (or try both).
 
If you can't find a small capacity IDE drive, consider CompactFlash with the appropriate adapter. Results in a wonderful system and CompactFlash smaller than 8GB is still very easy to find.
 
krebizfan said:
If you can't find a small capacity IDE drive, consider CompactFlash with the appropriate adapter. Results in a wonderful system and CompactFlash smaller than 8GB is still very easy to find.
Click to expand...

Agreed, but don't cheap out on the CF card, some cheaper cards wont format or boot in "IDE mode". I personally only use Sandisk for CF, but there's other quality brands too, I understand Lexar, Delkin, and a few others are good, in general any CF marketed as an "Industrial" card will probably work in IDE mode.

Another option would be a DOM (Disk On Module), basically an early version of an SSD for industrial and embedded uses, like Industrial CF cards they can be spendy new sometimes, but every once in a while you can find deals on them.
 
The 20 gig is a WD(Western Digital) WD200. I can't recall what the 13 gig is. As for a card reader IDE solution..I honestly never thought about trying that since I had some old HDDs laying around. But there are so many flash based storage devices and they are so cheap now that it maybe a great idea actually.
 
Oh one more thing that I forgot to say. At this point I am starting to wonder if the IDE controller is just shot. If that is the case then what are some PCI or IDE recommendations?
 
Try These jumper settings below, they are for capacity limit, would help us see if your IDE controller is possibly not recognizing drive due to capacity, this is rare, but not unheard of possibility.

wd-jumper.png
 
Hey there, tried the jumper setting and nothing. At this point I am just going to call the ide controller shot and need to find a dos compatible pci ide controller board.
 
SO no devices are seen on either channel? I have seen some systems where 1 channel has blown and wont detect anything but the second channel works. Always set slave and master manually when having issues as it is much more reliable... try changing what channel the devices are on.

Also on these older systems a lot of the time the ide connector doesn't have a directional port that has the guide slot for the cable and the cable/port on board also doesn't come with the missing pin so you really have to be careful you have the IDE cable pointing the right direction on the board and on the devices you connect it to. Plus you have to make sure you have the cable on all the pins correct and it isn't hanging off since there is no guide on some systems. I think if you even mess this up once you could blow the channel.

Oh and I have several drives under 8GB if you want to buy one to try that. PM me if interested.
 
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Hedgie said:
Hey there, tried the jumper setting and nothing. At this point I am just going to call the ide controller shot and need to find a dos compatible pci ide controller board.
Click to expand...

Any IDE card with a BIOS should work out, it will NEED to have a BIOS though or it will not boot, and would not be seen without drivers (which I have not seen many with DOS drivers). If you are going this far you might want to look into a PCI SATA card with a BIOS, would let you use modern SATA hard drives.

Be sure you get the right voltage PCI card, you may only have 5V slots on a board that old, some cards will work on both, some cards might be 5V only some might be 3.3V only, something to watch for. Here is what to look for in different PCI slots.
 
Hey all sorry I've been away for so long. Life likes to do that. I got one of my boards in today. It's a SIIG SC-PE4A12 but I'm not sure what else is going on. I plop the card in and it gives me Auto-Configuration Error 03:03, Bus#: 00 Device#: 06 Function#: 00. I have tried to look up what this means exactly but no dice. At this point I'm about ready to play the Dalek's favorite pass time of Defenestration. But I rather not. IT seems everything is working..I am just sucking at getting this system to work. As for the sata options. That seems like something worth my time. But does anyone know what this all means?
 
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