Used/replacement HD gives I/O Error

[PCTech2morrow]

Hi!
(I need to preface this by stating that I am not able to put my hands on this PC as I live in AZ and my son lives in LA, so my help for him is based on long distance phone calls).

In trying to help my son extend the life of an approx. 5 yr old Compaq Presario PC, we are getting this error msg: I/O ERROR.

Here's how things have gone thus far:
Did have WinME on it, and started going south (bad). Wouldn't run Scandisk any more and was tossing some type of HDD sector error msgs. Thinking that the original HD was bad, I suggested he find a used older drive to replace it with. Original HDD is a Quantum of approx. 13gig size.

Since he wanted to put a new OS on it, I suggested W2K Pro and we made him the required Set-up Disks for it (4 floppies). He picked up an older used drive as I suggested which is a Quantum Fireball (Model# EX13.6 AT) of approx. 13gig size as well.

He swapped out the drives. Has checked and rechecked all data cables for secure connectivity. Has changed the boot sequence to A, CD and tried CD, A, but without any luck.

I am aware that in the Set-up utility we should be able to find an area for the "IDE HDD devices" or something along those lines so that we can change it from AUTO DETECTION or whatever manual settings are in place from the old drive, but can't seem to locate this within the Set-up utility.

I have been to Maxtors website (since they bought out Quantum's HDD division) and have the Cylinder, Head, and Sector settings for this replacement drive. If we could just find a way to break through Compaq's hold on the set-up utility and find the area to set the HDD manually, I think, we would probably fix our problem, but we can't seem to locate any settings there that give us those options for the HDD devices.

Whatever suggestions you could offer up, I'm all ears! Thanks!

Terry

 

[satrow]

$30 should see you with a better base unit? WinME - don't!

Andy.

 

[jward52]

Has he tried Maxtor's MaxBlast setup utility? Also, they make a diagnosis utility which you have to download an .exe, insert a floppy disk, and the util produces the bootable diskette. If the compaq can't do either one of those, then the compaq has other issues such as mobo problems.
Jim

 

[garebo]

My guess, if he is able to get into the bios on this compaq unit, there must be a place where he can have the drive set automatically by the bios, or where he can plug in the parameters you have already looked up.
He could go to the Compaq site, they have great support there on the forums. Tell him to become a free forum member and post his bios issues there and they will help him.
Im not trying to take away from this site at all, but his bios issues, if not solved here, can be solved there for sure!
On the other hand, i have an old compaq unit here, i can fire it up and if the bios is the same, then i can tell him where to go to make the changes. I will go do that and come back.



Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[garebo]

Ok, the unit i have is a Compaq deskpro, which is a bit older.
F10 gets into setup - dont know if thats the same.
Then i see File.. Storage ... etc etc across the top.

Go to "Storage"
Then use down arrow key to get to "IDE Devices" and press enter.
In the "Primary Device 0" his hard drive should be listed.
If not, then he should try and put the parameters in there.

Also, in the same "Storage" section, below IDE Devices he will see another section called "IDE Options". Make sure both items in that section are "enabled".
Also in "Storage" he can go to "Boot Order" and make sure it is set to boot from the hard drive.
When he leaves he has to tell the bios to "save".

As for the bios, he has to find that in the Rompaq section if i recall correctly. Again, not anything against this forum as I feel its the best there is on the net!, but if he signs up at the HP-Comaq site he can get specific help there than can be used to help out here, between the 2 places we can get the job done for you.
Or, with luck, what i gave you here will do the job, not sure as his is a Presario and mine is a Deskpro and a bit older, but the bios may still be the very same!




Good advice + great people = tek-tips

 

[garebo]

I just read what i posted above and i feel i should explain what i meant about the rompaq section. The rompaq is a fancy name for Compaq rom, hence Rompaq. In that section he can find a bios update. They usually tell you what the update does, for instance it might say "gives access to larger hard drives" or "fixes issues with usb keyboard and mouse",like that. So if he sees one for hard drive issues, he can download and install that. If not i would do all the other suggestions i made above and if they dont work then go back to the bios and install a newer bios, if indeed he needs one or if there is a bios upgrade as there may or may not be one for this unit.
Its sometimes even hard to tell exactly which machine you have, so again, the forum members there will help. The nachine I have has a name and model, serial number and a host of other numbers. I still couldnt find exactly which unit i had and a forum member there helped me out, turned out it was model 6333c. That number 6333c was not on the machine i had, the serial number gave me nothing, even email support people coudlnt help me, so i was out of luck. But i went to their forum and a member there got me the right machine info.


Good advice + great people = tek-tips