AT style HD problem.

[zeradul]

So today I was going though some old computer parts, and I discovered an old 80 meg maxtor HD, that appears to be AT style (is the the correct terminology?) It does not have any jumpers, just IDE and power connection. So I installed it in a old system, Pentium 233, just to see what was on the HD, and apparently the formats are not compatible.

I had installed it on the primary IDE controller, in the slave position. The Primary IDE controller no longer responds, but after hooking the HD up to the secondary IDE controller, and made the CD-rom slave, the computer works just fine.

I'm wondering what exactly I did, and if there is any way to ressurect the Primary controller. I know ATA 33/66 controllers are cheap as dirt, but if there is a simple fix to this I'd rather do it.

Do you think flashing the bios would help me? Any other thoughts/tips ?

Thanks....

[Beefy]

OK.. firstly, I don't quite think AT style is appropriate terminology.. AT is usually refering to the type of power supply / connector in a case.

with the HDD, is there any jumpers on any visible circuit board... usually on the bottom. Many old HDDs didn't have the jumpers on the back, but were cleverly hidden on a visible part of the PCB. Best thing to do would be to check out the Maxtor site for any information you can find on the HDD.

What do you mean 'formats are incompatible'?

It's also interesting that a HDD killed your IDE controller.. but if the HDD was faulty to begin with, then there's that slight chance that it may have fried it. Someone else here should be able to give you more info...

[zeradul]

I know what AT is usually used to describe.. I went on ebay and found a similar HD and they refered to it as an AT hard drive.

There are no jumpers anywhere. I know what you are getting at though, I have a 250 meg drive with the jumpers around on the PCB.

[zeradul]

AT is also used to describe motherboard layout, and keybaord connections to AT motherboards.

[Wiggo]

Well I'll sort ya's out on this. ;)
<a href="http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/index-c.html" target="_blank">The correct term is: Integrated Drive Electronics / AT Attachment (IDE/ATA) Interface</a>
So check that out. :)
But ya bit on format compatability is probably this,
<a href="http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/modes-c.html" target="_blank">IDE/ATA Transfer Modes and Protocols</a> :smokin:
<center>:cheers:</center>

[Darthtanion]

It may not boot up as a slave drive, but you can probably just disconnect your normal drive, install this one as the master, and then boot up with an old Win98 boot disk. Then you can scrounge around on the drive and see what is hidden there. :)

[sKuLLsHoT]

i doubt it killed your primary IDE controller, probably just tried to be master drive, beside the other master drive you already had there...