At 19:50 2/18/99 -0800, Chuck Finnigan wrote: >In the Device Manager of System Properties, my Hard disk controller device >lists 3 items: > >Intel 82371SB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller (working properly) >Primary IDE controller (dual fifo) (device not present or working properly) >Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo) (working properly) > >The first two are using IRQ 14. >The first and third are coexisting peacefully on IRQ 15. > >When I try to remove the Primary controller, it always returns when I reboot >the machine. It appears that I have two IDE controllers conflicting with >each other. How do I disable the second one? (AMIBIOS on an Intel board, >Windows 98) I have two hard drives connected via one cable to the >motherboard with my TEAC CD drive using the other connection on the board. Hi Chuck You said the first two are using IRQ 14 and the first and third are using IRQ 15. (Does the first line show *both* 14 and 15? Just curious!) It would be normal to have these three entries. It is normal to have the primary controller using IRQ 14 and the secondary controller using IRQ 15. (Your hard drives are on the primary channel and the Teack CD is on the secondary channel.) The entry for Intel 82371SB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller refers to the chip on the motherboard that controlls both the primary and secondary channels. When you remove this, it is automatically detected next time you reboot because it is Plug and Play and there's nothing you can do about that. And you want it there if you are using any IDE devices on either channel. Windows would probably detect it even if you disabled it in your BIOS Setup. What is not normal (as I'm sure you know) is that you see "device not present or working properly" for the primary controller. Are your hard drives working in MS-DOS Comparibility Mode? (Look in Control Panel, System, Performance). Do these drives work, are they FAT 12, 16, or 32? (They might surely work faster if that error message were not there.) See "MS-DOS Compatibility Mode Problems with PCI-IDE Controllers" at <http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q151/9/11.asp> and "Troubleshooting MS-DOS Compatibility Mode on Hard Disks" at <http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q130/1/79.asp>. There are several causes for this. One thing to try is to search the registry for "NOIDE" (without quotes). If you ever had trouble with a drive on the first channel, this entry may have been put in the registry and it likely "stuck". You could *delete* the NOIDE comment. I do not have the same chipset in my computers as do you, so I can't tell you more. I do recall that using Bus Mastering drivers can lead to your problem, particularly if the CDROM drive or one of the hard drives is older and does not like these drivers. (You may have to try try installing a generic IDE/ESDI controller driver.) It looks like your hard drives are not using the correct device driver, or it is failing to initialize when Win98 loads the protected mode drivers. Check your autoexec.bat and config.sys files for strange device drivers. Does your CDROM work? Maybe you could let us know what is in your config.sys file (and autoexec.bat). What is your processor, what chipset motherboard (if you don't know, let us know what BIOS identifier string you see at boot), what brand and *vintage* computer? (I had these problems two years ago...but have forgotten the details.) Regards, Bill PCBUILD only works if you contribute. Send your messages to be posted to: [log in to unmask]