At 04:12 PM 01/01/2001 Gary wrote:
>An old 486 system I have recently started leaving messages when booting
>up. It stated "HDD Controller Error, press F1 to resume". . .eventually,
>it died and I could not get access to the hard drive.
>
>I had a peek at the . . . Hard Drive Controller.  I therefore assumed
>that the card needed replacing. . . .


Gary:

On an IDE hard drive the Controller is built into the drive (the
"Integrated" part of Integrated Drive Electronics --IDE). Thus, any problem
with the drive will cause this hardware error message. Moreover, the I/O
card is NOT actually a controller; it is merely an ATA interface.

The problem is with the drive, and you should back up your data
immediately. It is a candidate for replacement.

I would guess that the drive motor cannot get up to speed or otherwise
initialize before the BIOS conducts the Power On Self-Test (POST) and
compares the drive to the hard drive parameters settings in CMOS. If you
listen to the drive, does the motor power up immediately at start up, or
does it take a long time to hear the full speed whine of the motor?

Sometimes, you can extend the POST by setting CMOS to test memory above 1MB
RAM to buy extra time for the drive to finish initialization and get up to
operational speed. This setting is in Advanced CMOS Setup.

While in CMOS, you should check all other settings that affect your hard
drive, such as drive parameters (is it set to auto-detect -- the ability of
the BIOS to autodetect may be slipping -- manually input the CHS parameters
as user defined), transfer settings, PIO/UDMA mode, etc. for obvious
incorrect settings. However, it is likely the drive itself is going South.

If you have added any new power consuming devices to your computer, or it
is otherwise heavily utilized, you might check your POWER SUPPLY because it
may not provide enough power to get the drive spinning up to operational
speed during the POST.  Do not re-power the system repeatedly, that may
only contribute to an earlier demise of the hard drive, as well as stress
the entire system, including the power supply.

Also, the cable may have a discontinuity in it and/or drive signals are
being interrupted, so check the IDE ribbon cable (try a known working cable).

Finally, if this is a really old hard drive and the drive heads do not
self-park by retraction (unlikely), you might have a striction problem.
That's where the head(s) stick to the platter(s) while at rest in the
landing zone ("sticky friction" caused by foreign matter, such as motor
lubricants, and/or corrosion on the heads and platter) and the drive heads
have to "break" the striction before the motor can start up.

Regards,

John Chin

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