Very annoying, isn't it?  Several possible problems will cause this
cryptic error message.  Here's a short list.  Heat.  Amazingly some
486 cpus ran fine with non-working cpu fans, but my ide controllers
seemed especially sensitive to heat build-up.  Perhaps heat build-up
effects 12 volt output earlier than 3.45 volt output if the power
supply fan is weak or dead.  Bad slot.  Try cleaning
the card connector with a pencil eraser, and inserting it several times
to try and improve contact, and consider adjusting the motherboard
mounting screws, something could have moved or warped just enough to
effect the contact area in the slot.  Bad power supply, I found one
system that could boot one hard disk, but not two, without pressing
the hard reset button several times.  There probably wasn't sufficient
voltage until the system was on a couple seconds.  Bad disk.  I can't
remember seeing this on an ide drive, however.  Bad cmos drive
definition.
This points indirectly at a bad battery, although you wrote you checked
that.  Check again your cylinder and head settings for the drive in
cmos.
I would use 'auto' if it is an available selection.  After confirming
the drive is good in a different pc, my usual plan was to disconnect
other power consumption, to see if the power was the problem.  I had
one that would boot if I took out the network card.
Tom Turak

-----Original Message-----
From: Gary Cassidy [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, January 01, 2001 4:13 PM

An old 486 system I have recently started leaving messages when booting
up.  It stated "HDD Controller Error, press F1 to resume".  Hitting F1
worked a few times and I was able to get into the system but eventually,
it
well and truly died and I could not get access to the hard drive.

I had a peek at the Serial I/O card where the 40 pin ribbon cable
connects.  It was labelled Hard Drive Controller.  I therefore assumed
that
the card needed replacing.  I managed to find a used card for $5.00 and
it
worked just fine for a couple of days.  Unexpectedly, the message has
come
back once or twice.

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