Philadelphia, PA 5/16/01 Greetings Support Forum Readers: I head for the shore on weekends as the weather improves and every so often I stumble upon a yard sale where I am prone to spend a dollar or two for items such as a piece of sporting equipment or board game for use by the kids [DAUGHTER (14); SON (12)] on the beach, or a planter or garden tool for a seedling that I uproot while landscaping. At a yard sale on April 28th, the wife's cosmetics and fragrances did not particularly interest me, but the husband's IBM clone Pentium - I (with 133 mhz and SM5-A Softswitch PCI motherboard) looked appealing for weekend use for the kids [and I admit it their father too] especially since the system was loaded with a Win 98 upgrade to Win 95 and Internet Explorer 5.0 and a 56 k modem. The husband stated that he had upgraded to 64 meg of ram and a voodoo video card within the past year. I checked out the 56 k modem and two medium sized hard drives as well as the audio featuress, and I then purchased the system. I used it for about an hour on 4/29 primarily to download upgrades from the Microsoft support web site and to make sure that my AOL 6.0 CD and latest version of AOL Instant Messenger 4.1 installed properly (When I saw that they did, I powered down completely.) The next time I used it was on Friday the 11th. The clock was reading the accurate time and date. Everything was working well for about a half hour. I believe that I was in the middle of selecting a May 6, 2001 download from the Microsoft support web site [probably a security patch for Windows 98] and the .exe file was in the early stages of transfer [far before the setup command screen] when the entire system froze. The first error message I saw contained reference to a VFAT allocation error. Soft rebooting proved unsuccessful. When I powered on and powered off, Scandisk went about 11 percent and the gave the following error message: FAT error on C Drive prevents fixing by scandisk Then there was a quick reference to krnl386.exe before the "It is now safe to turn off your computer" message appeared on the screen. Unfortunately, the miscellaneous 3.5 inch software that the husband gave me (with the motherboard manual and a Windows 95 new install CD) did not include a recovery or rescue boot disk. I tried scanreg on one occasion and selected the 4/29/01 entry. THE REGISTRIES CHANGED, but that did not solve the problem. After a reformatting of the C and D drives and installing 6.00 version of dos with a view toward switching the jumpers and using the D drive as the new C and then installing Windows 95, the system, as of this moment, will not recognize the CD rom drive during boot although the light flashes by the CD eject button and you can hear the CD spin. The computer box is small and, with everything else on top of the motherboard, I could not locate the CMOS jumper without removing the various components. Do you have any suggestions as to locations of autoexec or config commands or maybe some sort of generic mscdex driver or executable file that you could send to me by e-mail that would help me in getting the yard sale computer to read the CD-rom drive? (It would be preferable to receive, without attachment, a text message and/or a website reference to a knowledge based support article for me to retrieve during the week while I am at the office.) On Monday night, 5/14/01, I familiarized myself with the CDromgod55.exe program (to try to find some generic drivers). I downloaded Winzip 6.3 to floppy from another computer at home. If it is a missing driver issue, I hope to be able to extract the necessary files since my various emergency start-up 3.5 inch disks [Win95, Win98, and Norton Anti-Virus] have not yet done the trick. Currently, the computer at the boot stage is not recognizing the second hard drive "D" or the CD-ROM drive "E". For some reason, the computer is not "reading" the CD even when E is designated as the boot drive through bios. I am somewhat concerned that, with the cramped conditions near the motherboard, there may be improper entries at CMOS and/or BIOS or that one or more of the jumpers may have become loosened or reattached incorrectly when the C and D drives were flipped. Maybe there is something on the WIN 95 install CD given to me at the yard sale which I can "read" from the office to which you could direct me that I me so I could transfer to 3.5 floppy and install on the yard sale computer to help "jump start" the plug and play features. [AN INSTALL BY 3.5 INCH FLOPPIES OF WINDOWS 3.11 WAS SUCCESSFUL AND PROGRAM MANAGER CURRENTLY DOES WORK.] If a new hard drive or other significant hardware purchase is required because of something that occurred during the 5/11 crash, I am reluctant to put more money into the system so please let me know if you think, based upon the following partial printout of my latest Microsoft Diagnostics Report, any of the components or remaining hardware could be of value to a high school or college computer class. Thanks in advance for your help, DAVE [215-640-3300] -- Microsoft Diagnostics version 2.10 5/16/01 0:20am Page 1 ------------------- ---- Summary Information Computer: Wang/Award, 486DX Memory: 640K, 48128K Ext, 1024K EMS, 1024K XMS Video: VGA, Unknown Network: MS Client OS Version: MS-DOS Version 6.00 Mouse: Serial Mouse Other Adapters: Game Adapter Disk Drives: A: C: LPT Ports: 1 COM Ports: 2 Windows Information: 3.11, Enhanced -------- --------------------- Computer Computer Name: Wang BIOS Manufacturer: Award BIOS Version: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG BIOS Category: IBM PC/AT BIOS ID Bytes: FC 01 00 BIOS Date: 04/23/97 Processor: 486DX Math Coprocessor: Internal Keyboard: Enhanced Bus Type: ISA/AT/Classic Bus DMA Controller: Yes Cascaded IRQ2: Yes BIOS Data Segment: None  Microsoft Diagnostics version 2.10 5/16/01 0:20am Page 2 ======================================================================== ------ ------------------------ Memory Legend: Available " " RAM "##" ROM "RR" Possibly Available ".." EMS Page Frame "PP" Used UMBs "UU" Free UMBs "FF" 1024K FC00 RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR FFFF Conventional Memory F800 RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR FBFF Total: 640K F400 RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR F7FF Available: 607K 960K F000 RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR F3FF 622448 bytes EC00 EFFF E800 EBFF Extended Memory E400 E7FF Total: 48128K 896K E000 E3FF DC00 DFFF Expanded Memory (EMS) D800 ........ DBFF LIM Version: 4.00 D400 PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP D7FF Page Frame Address: C800H 832K D000 PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP D3FF Total: 1024K CC00 PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP CFFF Available: 1024K C800 PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP CBFF C400 RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR C7FF XMS Information 768K C000 RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR C3FF XMS Version: 2.00 BC00 ................ BFFF Driver Version: 2.05 B800 ................ BBFF A20 Address Line: Enabled B400 B7FF High Memory Area: In use 704K B000 B3FF Available: 1024K AC00 AFFF Largest Free Block: 1024K A800 ABFF A400 A7FF DPMI Information 640K A000 A3FF DPMI Detected: Yes Version: 0.90 ----- ------------------------- Video Video Adapter Type: VGA Manufacturer: Unknown Model: Display Type: VGA Color Video Mode: 3 Number of Columns: 80 Number of Rows: 25 Video BIOS Version: VGA BIOS - Version 1.00.01-SD Copyright (C) 1990 - VGA BIOS - Version 1.00.01-SD Copyright (C) 1990 - VGA BIOS - Version 1.00.01-SD Video BIOS Date: 08/24/98 VESA Support Installed: Yes VESA Version: 3.00 VESA OEM Name: 3Dfx Interactive, Inc. Secondary Adapter: None  Microsoft Diagnostics version 2.10 5/16/01 0:20am Page 3 ======================================================================== ------- ---------------------- Network Network Detected: Yes Network Name: MS Client MS-DOS Network Functions: Supported Computer Name: NetBIOS Present: No Network Root: User Name: Workgroup: Server Connection: Not Established Mailslot Support: No API Support: No SYSTEM.INI Information: [boot.description] network.drv=No Network Installed secondnet.drv=No Additional Network Installed ---------- ------------------ OS Version Operating System: MS-DOS 6.00 Internal Revision: 00 OEM Serial Number: FFH User Serial Number: 000000H OEM Version String: MS-DOS Version 6.00 DOS Located in: HMA Boot Drive: C: Path to Program: C:\WINDOWS\MSD.exe Environment Strings ---------------------- COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM PROMPT=$p$g PATH=C:\WINDOWS;C:\DOS TEMP=C:\DOS windir=C:\WINDOWS ----- ------------------------- Mouse Mouse Hardware: Serial Mouse Driver Manufacturer: No Mouse Driver  Microsoft Diagnostics version 2.10 5/16/01 0:20am Page 4 ======================================================================== -------------- ------------ Other Adapters Game Adapter: Detected Joystick A - X: 0 Y: 0 Button 1: On Button 2: On Joystick B - X: 0 Y: 0 Button 1: On Button 2: On ----------- ---------------- Disk Drives Drive Type Free Space Total Size ----- ------------------------------------ ---------- ---------- A: Floppy Drive, 3.5" 1.44M 80 Cylinders, 2 Heads 512 Bytes/Sector, 18 Sectors/Track C: Fixed Disk, CMOS Type 0 451M 503M 1023 Cylinders, 16 Heads 512 Bytes/Sector, 63 Sectors/Track CMOS Fixed Disk Parameters 2595 Cylinders, 16 Heads 63 Sectors/Track SHARE Installed LASTDRIVE=E: * * * [END OF POSTING]

I was just reading an arcticle at www.pcguide.com that might help you. It concerns the limitations of the bios recognizing the sizes of the bigger hard drives. Looking at your MSD readout, it looks like your second fixed disk drive is exceding these limitations and might be why your D: drive is not being recognized. Perhaps your bios was corrupted when you were doing your upgrade. You can probably get the proper cylinder, head,l-zone,and sector settings for the type of hard disks you are using at your local computer store and install them to your bios using type47 .

I think about flashing you bios. First read the HOW TO then check out http://www.wimsbios.com/ and select your motherboard name from the list. It helped with me, so i think it could help you to. If the problem is still there, go to your HD's homepage and try to find your HD in the list. Then search for the cilinders, sectors, etc. When you heve them, go to your BIOS setup and then your HD's propereties. Now you can fill in these cilinders, sectors, etc. I think this would help. Greatz, Bram if still you have the problem, just mail me, and i will think about a solution.

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Please! I'm portuguese, and i want the manual of Award BIOS v 4.51PG. Thak you!