Reseller, my thanks too for taking the time to post that interesting
SparQ experience. Others have noted that some IDE devices, even newer
ones, do not always work on both EIDE ports or as slave. My experience
confirms that. I have been having problems with my new hardware for
months, spending weekends trying new drivers, new configurations, and
as a last resort, Dogbert incantations against the demons of stupidity.
I just days ago discovered the cure.
I'm running Win95 OSR2, a 4 month old version.
My 4 month old mobo supports bootable Zip.
I have an Atapi Zip, IBM and WDC 6.4GB HD's,
and a MagicSpin 20X CDROM.
When I configured them thus:
Primary port, Master position - IBM HD
Primary port, Slave position - Zip Atapi
Secondary port, Master position - WDC HD
Secondary port, Slave position - CDROM
Boot after installing original Win95 driver:
the Secondary port device driver was disabled.
Boot after installing "bmide_95.exe" Intel driver:
the Primary port device driver was disabled.
Boot after installing "setupex.exe" Intel 82371xB driver:
the Primary port device driver was disabled.
I had all but given up hope when it occured to me to switch each
port's primary and secondary devices, et viola, it all works now.
So now my configuration is:
Primary port, Master position - Zip Atapi
Primary port, Slave position - IBM HD
Secondary port, Master position - CDROM
Secondary port, Slave position - WDC HD
Running the Intel 82371xB driver, and according to the SYSMON program,
I get about 5.4 MB/sec peak transfer rate when copying whole partitions
from one HD to the other.
Thus I agree with the respondant who said that these days you have to
be willing to fiddle with new hardware. My opinion is that PC industry
competition is so fierce, it has increased the number of bugs in recent
hardware and software compared to 1-2 years ago. Back then, just
about anything I installed in my PC worked first time, every time.
My guess is, things won't improve until hardware prices stop their
free-fall, and return to their historic decline rates. |
