My system refuses to boot when my 12Gb maxtor HD is connected to my Promise Ultra 66 PCI IDE controller card. I have another much older drive which contains windows. The system boots when the older drive is connected to the card on its own but not when the maxtor drive is connecte at all. I have recently upgraded my system processor to an evergreen overdrive (400mhz) and have been advised that it may be something to do with me PCI timing. How can I change it? Motherboard: FIC PA-2005. thanks

Hey Mark: I don't claim to know everything, but in many years of PC repair I have never heard that term . . . sounds more like a 327 Chevy motor problem. If you are having problems anytime that Maxtor drive is plugged in, I would first suspect a problem there. Either it's jumpered wrong . . . something. I would suggest that you jumper the Maxtor as a master, remove the Promise controller and then hook it up to the onboard IDE. Using a startup disk, see if you can boot to DOS and view the drive there. If you can do that, then replace the Promise controller and try the Maxtor there. If you can boot the thing to DOS, you should be able to get Windows to work on it. If you cannot boot to DOS, maybe the drive is dead. Call 1-800-4-Maxtor. Those folks are great to deal with and I would suspecty that the drive is still under warranty. Good Luck to you!

is the maxtor hd new them you will need to make it bootabe with maxtor disk

If you FDISK with a Windows 98 Startup disk, it is almost impossible to fail to create a fat 32 hard drive. If you do, you cannot boot to it with DOS, but the Windows 98 startup disk should boot to it. Could that be the problem? Not the card or drive but the type of format and operating system?