Boot with a bootdisk. At the a:\> prompt type: fdisk and enter. Y to large disk support if asked, then option 4. What does it say?

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If you switched your drive to the second controller you should enter the bios setup program and make sure the bios knows that there is no drive on the first controller and recognizes the drive on the second controller.

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Thanks again for the replies... I have tried booting with a boot disk many many times... It still goes to the "Disk I/O Error" for some weird reason. And Thanks for the advice about the BIOS Barry, that had totally slipped my mind. I went in and did an Auto detect and it did find the hard drive on the secondary controller, yet, it still comes back with an "Disk I/O Error". I am about at the point of throwing this computer off my balcony LOL. Thanks all for all your help. I am going to try replacing the "Real Time Clock" battery and see if that solves my problem.

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Hi Jeff, Well, if it ISN'T the Real Time Clock, it looks like you might have bent pins on the hard drive or the motherboard IDE port. One other problem (that I'm aware of) could cause this; if the orignal drive won't work as a Master (bad IDE controller chip on the drive), you can install your new drive as the Primary Master (at the END of the ribbon cable), and the old drive as the Primary Slave (hooked to the MIDDLE of the ribbon cable), then re-set the CMOS to auto-detect both drives. You do NOT need to format or install anything on the new drive (yet); the floppy disk will allow you to use DOS to try to locate the data on the old drive. Once the drives are detected, save the CMOS settings, and reboot the system with a boot-up floppy. Once the system gets to the A: prompt, try to change to the C: drive, the D: drive, and so on. If you find your data (most likely on the D: or E: drive, depending on which boot disk you use, and how the drives are partitioned), the odds are good that you've diagnosed the problem. I have two drives with dead (on-board) IDE controllers, which are still in use as slave drives; a cheap way to get some extra mileage out of them. Replacing the Real Time Clock is still a good idea, but once that is done, I'd give a lot of thought to backing up the old drive if that data really is priceless. Good luck with this, Jeff; please let us know how this turns out. Tech Guy the Tech Guy

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Hey Jeff, Well I am currently working on the same exact error message and I with a company that fortunately have spare PCs I can swap in and out to troubleshoot problems with certain machines. But anyway I read other posts which suggested that it could be systemboard issues and in this case I am going the other direction and banking on the HardDrive itself. The PC I was getting the error message on I remove the HardDrive from it and place it into a known Good PC that had no issues with it and place the HardDrive in it and got the same exact error message. So 2 different PC, same exact HardDrive, same exact error message. Looks like hardware HardDrive is the issue in this case. Hope this gives you a broader look for this problem and not have you spend too much time and money into this. Good luck and keep us posted if you can. ~TLTech~

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Are you sure a: is the first boot device in cmos? If you're getting that error message when attempting to boot from a floppy maybe it's actually still trying to boot from the HD.

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I have had that error too. It was the hard drive. I would sugest taking out the old hard drive and putting it in a diffrent computer just to rule out the posibility of it being the hard drive. be sure to have it as C: when u put it in the other computer.

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HI All... First of all, I bought a new Hard Drive and placed in into the computer and I still got the Disk I/O Error. So there is definitely something not right with the computer even with the old HDD taken out. I did as TechGuy suggested and hooked the HDD up to my other computer, and the HDD was detected and I was able to see the contents of the HDD. Although, From what I can tell it is running correctly, but it still gave me the I/O Error message on the Dell as well, when trying to boot it up as normal. So the HDD maybe indeed faulty, but what else on the computer could cause the computer to give me the same "I/O Error" even with the faulty HDD in question out of the computer? It gives me the same message with the new Seagate HDD I bought as well. I also carefully looked at all of the ribbon cables, making sure the 'pins' were not bent in any way on the cables and the HDD. They were all perfectly straight. Also, the cables are all brand new. So, I can safely rule the cables out as the culprit. Also, I am positive A:\ is the first device used to boot. It is set to "A,C". Thanks all for the replies... ;-)

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OK, Jeff, thanks for the info; lets see where we are now: First of all, please clarify something for us; you installed the old drive into a different system, but did you install it as a Single / Master drive (which I doubt), or did you follow my suggestion and install it as a slave (which is what I suspect)? I'd just like clarification of that seemingly minor point; read on to see why. Second question; did YOU format the new Seagate drive? If not, you will get SOME type of error message; I'd suggest you use a boot disk to FDISK, FORMAT and "SYS" the Seagate, install it as a Single / Master drive on the system in question, and then see what, if any, error message you get. Following that, install the old drive as a slave to the new drive, and then see if you can read the data on the old drive again. Same test as the one you just ran, but now on the malfunctioning system. You'll have to run FDISK first, if the drive is not already partitioned. Just boot the new drive with the floppy, and when you see the A: prompt, type this (without the quotes): A:\>"FDISK" Tell it YES (Press the letter "Y", and then Enter) when it asks if you want to enable large disk support (so you can use the FAT32 file system), and set the entire drive as one partition; you can change that later (if need be) by running FDISK again. To format and install the system files, the proper command at the A: prompt (without the quotes) is: A:\>"FORMAT C: /S" Third question; did you get the Real Time Clock replaced? Is a Dallas RTC, or the "Houston Tech" third-world knockoff? I don't know if they are absolutely interchangeable, although I suspect that they are. I've seen all kinds of bizarre problems from weak RTCs, which is why I've suggested that you get a new one. Truthfully, this oddball Pentium Pro FuguTech M701 motherboard you have is not worth a lot of money, but a working system is a working system, and if you can get a few more miles out of it for a low-buck price, I say go for it. Until you eliminate the RTC as a possible compounding factor in this problem, you won't know where you stand. Since you WERE able to read the contents of the flaky drive when it was installed into the second computer (the Dell), I have to say the odds are excellent that the onboard IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) controller is no longer functioning. The old drive will HAVE to be slaved to something that DOES work as a Master drive, in order to keep using it. How old IS this drive, anyway? What size is it? I urge you not to rely on it too much longer; no telling when it will crap out completely. In the meantime, you can slave it to a CD-ROM drive (probably best as a Secondary Slave), so you'll get good performance from any drive on the Primary channel, and still get good throughput if you need to transfer files from one hard drive to another. They work better on different ribbon cables when transferring files that way, and you'll just have to be sure your optical drive is set up as a Master drive, so the IDE controller on the CD-ROM drive will handle all the work for the old drive. For the record, I hate to disagree with anyone else publicly, but I urge you NOT to simply put a drive into a different system as the primary (C:) drive, as was suggested in Response Number 13. Too many bad things can happen when chipset drivers (and other) don't match, and although I realize both systems use Intel chipsets, I'm pretty sure the Dell does NOT have the i440FX (Intel) chipset onboard. There IS a way to accomplish that feat, but it requires a Registry hack just before you shut down and remove the drive from the old system, and you'll have to re-install every driver not provided in Windows before you will be up to speed in the new system again. I've seen too many drives get their brains scrambled to the point where they become unbootable, simply by swapping from one motherboard to another. I DO have two identical Intel Seattle II motherboards, one with a PIII / 800 MHz, and the other with a PIII / 500 MHZ, which I use to demonstrate drive-swapping (I teach computer repair classes frequently), and that is the ONLY time I break my own rule about swapping drives WITHOUT mutilating the ENUM folder in the Registry first. Well, I need some sleep; please update us when you can, and good luck with this. I'll check for your response sometime later today. Side note: my e-mail account went to hell, so I'll contact you later, when I set up a new one. HTH Tech Guy

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I’ve been following this thread. I have a similar I/O error or no response depending on what I do in BIOS. My issue is with a CD-ROM. The chipset is too old to support HD over 8G so I use a controller card. But I’m trying to run a CD drive onboard. I’m at the point of assuming the onboard IDE controllers (both 0 and 1) are dead. Can I slave the CD-ROM off the HD ribbon using the PCI controller card? When you good folks speak of real time clocks do you mean just change the COMOS battery? I will try that. Jeff, try a PCI slot ATA IDE controller card ($20). thx, sack

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Hi sack, You have an interesting problem; a lot will depend on how your particular CMOS settings are configured. Can you give us more details about your motherboard? I've cut-and-pasted this next part from another post I replied to previously: ********************************************* One other thing that could help in the diagnosis is for you to shut down your system, unplug your keyboard, and turn the system on. You should then see a LONG string of letters and numbers at the bottom of your screen; they'll look something like this: 41-P400-001437-00101111-101094-486AVIP-H or this: 06/16/97-i430FX-2A59CF52C-00 Please copy those down EXACTLY as they appear, and post them here. That way, we can research your motherboard, and we might be able to tell you EXACTLY what size(s) and type(s) of RAM your system will support. Once you copy those numbers, shut the system down, and plug the keyboard back in. ********************************************* Post whatever information you learn from this, and we'll put our collective heads together. Good luck; I'll check for a response from you later tonight and again sometime tomorrow. HTH Pete

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Hi Pete, For some reason I am unable to get the chipset codes with this BIOS. I had high hopes your keyboard tip would help but it still did not report with the keyboard removed. I think I’m going to have to pull the mobo and look for a serial code sticker somewhere. This is as close as I can get until I pull the board: I think it is an intel 440 something or another, Digital (Compaq now-a-days?) PC 5500 v1.02, with Phoenix bios 4.05 (and lots of options don’t work like auto detect for the IDE’s and enable USB’s). I think I’m going to break the system down 80-90%, put it back together, and try the onboards again. If that don’t work I’ll start looking for a bios update and flash it (if one exists). I have not tried the CD-ROM on the controller card yet. For some reason I don’t think that’s going to work. I’ll post the chipset and stuff after I pull the board. thx vm, sack

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Hi again, sack, That system is rather old, so you might be stuck with the BIOS you already have, but please start your own thread next time you post. This one is getting a little stale, and a fresh post might attract more eyeballs; someone else might know more about your system, and be able to provide some critical information. Anyway, I'm glad someone else likes to keep the dinosaurs "on the road"; thought I might be the ONLY one. Let us know how things progress; see you in the forums. Pete

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