On the other hand . . .

when Performance reported that A:\ and C:\ were runing in DOS compatibility
mode, "Details"  (Windows Help) reported that this was probably due to a
driver in config.sys that Win95 did not recognize.  I REM'd the one driver
in config.sys, and rebooted (the boot process now took 20 minutes) and the
"DOS compatibility mode" message is gone.  My computer now appears to be
responding normally.  My hope (desperate wish) is that the next boot will
be at normal speed.

Larry Gurley


At 10:25 PM 03/14/2000 -0800, Kyle Elmblade <[log in to unmask] wrote:
>By all appearances (and listers please confirm) it sounds like your
>motherboard may be getting a little senile.  You have all the indications of
>an IDE controller failure.  It's possible (and hopefully true) that it could
>be a bad cable or possibly even a voltage problem with the power supply.
>The only way to really tell is to rebuild the system on a different
>motherboard and see if the problem goes away.  Not a very happy prospect.
>
>Kyle
>
>From: "Francisco Novo" <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Tuesday, March 14, 2000 7:33 AM
>Subject: [PCBUILD] C drive switched to MS-DOS comp. mode !!!
>
>
>> Hi PCBUILDers, and please excuse my long posting.
>>
>> My story:
>>
>> Once upon a time, there was a nice computer which
>> worked flawlessly since the day of its birth, more than
>> a year ago.  It's an AcerOpen AX6LC MoBo, PII/333 MHz,
>> 64 MBytes DRAMM, 6.4 GByte Maxtor HDD (Primary Master),
>> an old but very reliable Creative 6X CD-ROM Drive as
>> Primary Slave, Sound Blaster 32 sound card, ATIExpert
>> AGP 8MB Video card and Win95 (OSR2) as the OS.
>>
>> Two weeks ago, one Monday morning during boot up, an awful
>> blue screen came up with a message reading more or less:
>> "Windows has detected a child device not supported in this
>> configuration..." and some other details I must confess not
>> to remember.  Windows then entered in Safe Mode and after
>> re-configuring the video settings everything appeared to be
>> running fine... at that time.
>>
>> Some days after I tried to run a CD-ROM in my drive and found
>> that it was no longer recognized.  I then found that exploring
>> "My Computer" showed no trace of the once existing drive, so I
>> went to the Device Manager and found three brand new yellow
>> "!" under Hard Disk Controllers:
>>
>> ! Creative Labs IDE Controller
>> ! Primary IDE Controller (Single FIFO).......Using IRQ 14)
>> ! Secondary IDE Controller (Single FIFO).....(Using IRQ 15)
>> and a Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller with no "!" on it...(Using IRQ 14
>> and 15 )
>>
>> None of the above devices shows any conflict listed in the
>> "Resource" Tab, but Performance reports that "Drive C is running
>> in MS-DOS compatibility mode file system"
>>
>> I've tried deleting every conflicting device, but Windows brings
>> them up again during boot up, I tested the CD-ROM drive in another
>> computer and it works fine, I even reinstalled Windows ending
>> exactly in the same situation.
>>
>> Double clicking the Creative IDE Controller\General shows a message
>> saying that the "Device is causing a resource conflict," but I can't
>> find the cause of such a sudden conflict and this thing is driving
>> me crazy.  I'm trying not to reach the "dramatic" decision of
>> reformating the HDD to start from the very beginning because
>> my computer has never "seen" its CD drive again.
>>
>> Could someone PLEASE give me a clue of what else can I do?
>> I would deeply appreciate any advice.
>>
>> TIA
>>
>> Frank.
>> [log in to unmask]
>
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Lawrence T. Gurley
[log in to unmask],
[log in to unmask]

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