Yesterday I got a used Quantum HD, model 1080AT, 1 gig. It shows up in BIOS, but not in DOS or Win 98 SE. (I've tried it in two different computers.) When I try to boot with it as primary master I get "drive not ready, insert a bootdisk". When installed as slave it just doesn't show up, except in BIOS. Of course I can't fdisk or sys C when DOS or Windows can't see it. I got this drive from a trusted source who has never sold or given me junk. If it matters, it came out of a Compaq. I've checke repeatedly that jumpers and cables are correct. Any ideas why it won't show in the OS, when it is showing in bios, and is obviously spinning?

ummm...buy a new puter. =0) 486...I mean...whoa! heh...look try setting them up on seperate IDE cables, maybe it won't work cause of the PIO and DMA of the other drive. Of course I am unsure if you have a CD-ROM thats why I'm mentioning it. Also try disconnecting the CD-ROM period for a trial and error test. Can't imagine it needs to be...but try flashing your BIOS if you can find it. Heh...I think they used eeproms back then right? hehe... sorry just kidding. I would seriously invest in some new stuff...an old MBD, CPU, MEM setup is less than $70 for like a 500Mhz/64MB. GL though.

Thanks for the response and suggestions. I have tried it as the only drive on the primary ide, with nothing on the secondary channel. That's when I get the message "drive not ready, insert a boot disk in drive a:". Don't need a newer computer, I have an Athlon 1.4 with 512 meg of ram running 98SE, and a K6III 400 with 128, also running 98SE, Plus a Pentium 100 running 95B. I'm setting up this computer because I *want* an old computer, to play with "real" DOS and Windows 3.1, and run my really old DOS games. Guess I'll just leave the 420 meg drive in it, plus the 256K video card, and 5 1/4 floppy drive. Oh, and put the 2X cd drive back in too. At least it's Y2K compliant. *smile*

laff, ysk eh?...so when you use a bottdisk to check the drive out...it does not detect C:? BTW...you gotta alot of puters...with DOS based windows...how come you never took the NT plunge? i.e. 2k, XP?

hello goto the hd makers sight and see if theres a patch or utilitie for this hard drive.try putting hard drive in your pentium 00 and see if its detected in there. and if your not useing some thing w2k compliant just set date back . allso some older hd have more than one jumper to move to actualy make them master or slave. allso did you manualy set the bios to use this hard drive? ie:set the heads and cylanders ect? 486 are not auto detect plug and play the hd will have the cylanders and heads and sectors listed on its back. those must be manualy set in bios befor dos or windoz can see hd have a nice day

No, when I boot with a bootdisk it shows "invalid drive specification" when I try to switch to c: drive. Even though the disk is recognized in bios. You sort of answered your own question about XP and 2000. I like DOS and I'm not willing to give it up yet. Plus, I'm waiting to see what tricks MS has up their sleeves with XP and "product activation". No telling where they are going with that, will be interesting to see though.

Thanks for the response Dave. This motherboard's bios is autodetect, and is correctly identifying the drive. Quantum is now supported by Maxtor, and there is very little on the Maxtor site. This drive is not even listed there, probably because it was made for Compaq (I think). Did find some support and specs other places using Google. You gave me an idea though, I might find something on the Compaq site, haven't checked there yet.