My computer, which is a pentiun with windows 98, sometimes does and
sometimes does not install my cdrom. I would like to find out what the
reason for this erratic behavior is and what I can do about it.

Maybe if somebody could explain to me how BIOS works and what the
various terms in BIOS are, or call my attention to a website which
explains this, I could figure out what is wrong.

When I press DEL after starting the computer a screen saying "Ambios
Simple Setup Utility Version 1.20 1988 American Megatrend" pops up
giving various options. Pressing the 1-st option "Standard  CMOS
Setup" gives me a table which, below the date and time, lists the
following : 4 lines begining with:"Primay Master, Primary slave.
secondary master, secondary slave, each at the beginning of one of 4
lines.

Above the lines are the several headings as follows:
Type, Size, Cyl, Head Wpcom Sec LBA-mode, Blk-mode, Plo-mode, 32Bit
"type" can be toggled between"not insalled", "user", and "auto". If
pressing "enter" at "AUTO" in case of master and slave 1 the right
sizes for the corresponding disks appear under size, cylinder, head
and sec respectively.  But for 2. master "not installed" appears. For
2-slave sometimes "cdrom" appears in which case cd rom is insalled,
and in other cases "not installed appears" in which case cdrom is not
installed.

Could anybady explain to me what "Wpcom" "LBA-mode", amd "Blk-mode",
and "Plo-mode" mean? I assume that "32 Bit" is the choice between
partitionig the disk into partitions or individual sectors. The other
terms are obvius.
My computer, which is a pentiun with windows 98, sometimes does and
sometimes does not install my cdrom. I would like to find out what the
reason for this erratic behavior is and what I can do about it.

Maybe if somebody could explain to me how BIOS works and what the
various terms in BIOS are, or call my attention to a website which
explains this, I could figure out what is wrong.

When I press DEL after starting the computer a screen saying "Ambios
Simple Setup Utility Version 1.20 1988 American Megatrend" pops up
giving various options. Pressing the 1-st option "Standard  CMOS
Setup" gives me a table which, below the date and time, lists the
following : 4 lines begining with:"Primay Master, Primary slave.
secondary master, secondary slave, each at the beginning of one of 4
lines.

Above the lines are the several headings as follows:
Type, Size, Cyl, Head Wpcom Sec LBA-mode, Blk-mode, Plo-mode, 32Bit
"type" can be toggled between"not insalled", "user", and "auto". If
pressing "enter" at "AUTO" in case of master and slave 1 the right
sizes for the corresponding disks appear under size, cylinder, head
and sec respectively.  But for 2. master "not installed" appears. For
2-slave sometimes "cdrom" appears in which case cd rom is insalled,
and in other cases "not installed appears" in which case cdrom is not
installed.

Could anybady explain to me what "Wpcom" "LBA-mode", amd "Blk-mode",
and "Plo-mode" mean? I assume that "32 Bit" is the choice between
partitionig the disk into partitions or individual sectors. The other
terms are obvius.

---

Request for Question Clarification by maniac-ga on 08 May 2005 17:35 PDT

Hello Vaac,

A user's guide for your BIOS is available at
  http://www.fujitsu-siemens.co.uk/rl/servicesupport/techsupport/boards/Motherboards/MicroStar/MS6309/6309-3(ami).pdf
or a slightly better reference at
  http://www.amptron.com/manuals/PM-9100/m571v32.pdf
[scroll down for the BIOS setting (e.g., LBA-mode,  Blk-mode) explanation]

What does not sound right from your description is that you have:
 - master disk on first IDE
 - slave disk on first IDE
 - no master disk on second IDE
 - slave disk on second IDE (the CDROM you have problems with)
Please confirm this set up.

If this is the case, it may be as simple as changing the CDROM to be a
master (typically a jumper to add or remove) device to correct your
problem. If you need help in how to do this, please describe the CDROM
so I can look up information on the configuration change necessary.

Since you also indicate the problem is erratic, there may be other
causes including:
 - the power supply is inadequate (remove other devices to correct)
 - the CDROM itself is starting to fail (if the symptom persists if
you move it to the slave on IDE 1)
 - the drivers for Windows 98 are buggy - there are reports primarily
with Windows 95 where the OEM driver did not properly recognize some
IDE chip sets
Let me know if you want to pursue these alternatives as well.

  --Maniac

---

Clarification of Question by vaac-ga on 15 May 2005 15:33 PDT

I am sorry to have taken so much time to answer you for your excellent
comments. Since both questions are similar I will place the comment on
both:

I have dowloaded and tried to understand urls:

http://www.fujitsu-siemens.co.uk/rl/servicesupport/techsupport/boards/Motherboards/MicroStar/MS6309/6309-3(ami).pdf
and
http://www.amptron.com/manuals/PM-9100/m571v32.pdf

but while some of the information is useful even to me who am not a
computer expert, these sites are more for young peoples who seek to
pursue computer careers. I would therefore appreciate if you could
explain in LAYMAN TERMS what the following items mean:
"Wpcom" "LBA-mode", amd "Blk-mode"and "Plo-mode" 

If this is too complicated maybe you can answer the following: I would
prefer not to use win2000 or higher, except in an arrangement where I
can switch between the higher windows and win 98 or95. The reason is
that I am too old to learn how to handle an  operating system not
based on DOS and might get stuck with problems I cannot handle. Could
you explain to me what can widows 2000 and higher handle, that windows
98 cannot?

Another clarification I would like to get is is about the cdrom.
Before opening the computer to change the jumper and convert it from
sec. slave to master I decided to change the following lines in the
executive.bat of the root directory and in the executive.bat of the
c:\windows\command\ebd directory. The lines:

loadhigh C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\mscdex.exe /d:cd003 /m:10 /e /l:x
LH %ramd%:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:mscd003 /L:%CDROM%  

were changed to:

loadhigh C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\mscdex.exe /d:cd004 /m:10 /e /l:x
LH %ramd%:\MSCDEX.EXE /D:mscd004 /L:%CDROM%   respectively

This caused the cdrom to load consistently (except for the 1-st two
times). Is this an appropriate fix or coincidence?

Also, can I now connect a 3-rd hard disk on the free connection of the
daisy which has the cdrom? If not can you inform me whether the new
computers have a provision whereby more than two hard disks can be
connected? What are the interfaces IED and ATA and do I need both, one
of them and which?

Thank you very much in advance.
Vaac-ga

---

Request for Question Clarification by maniac-ga on 20 May 2005 19:01 PDT

Hello Vaac,

I can directly answer part of what you ask, not quite all of it.

[1] The definitions follow:
  Wpcom - Write Precompensation. Old disks (I am not sure if yours are
old enough) do not have a uniform data density. This is because the
center of the disk rotates more slowly than the outer part of the
disk. This setting tells the BIOS when to adapt (> the specified
cylinder number) how it writes the data to the disk; newer disks
ignore the setting, they compensate automatically.
  LBA-mode - Logical Block Addressing mode.  Instead of referring to a
location on a disk as cylinder, head, block, LBA mode uses a number
from 1 to the maximum number of blocks to refer to location on the
disk. This was introduced as one way to bypass one of the disk limits.
  Blk-mode - Block mode. The disk generates an interrupt for every 8
or 16 blocks transferred. Using this reduces the overhead on the
computer.
  Pio-mode - Programmed Input / Output mode. There are basically two
ways to transfer data to the disk (or any other high speed device).
The Direct Memory Access (DMA) mode is done using special hardware
(specify a memory location, size, and location on the disk). In
contrast, PIO mode requires the computer to copy the data to/from the
disk after setting up some registers indicating the location of disk
to write/read.

Describing the differences between Windows 98 and 2000 (or XP) will
take some time. There are some general guides (but not very
comprehensive) such as
  http://www.cgc.maricopa.edu/winxp/faqs.html
or
  http://www.infopackets.com/gazette/2004/20041202_key_differences_between_win98_me_and_xp.htm
or
  http://labmice.techtarget.com/FAQ/winxpfaq.htm

Search for 
  differences windows 2000 98
  differences windows xp 98
for more such sites.

Note in particular that XP may not likely run on your old hardware and
98 may not likely run on the new hardware. It may be "better" to keep
both systems running if you decide to get a new machine and set up a
small network.

The changes you made to the loadhigh command certainly looks OK. If
the hardware is reliable like this, then I suggest you leave it alone.
Reading
  http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confJumpering-c.html
indicates that the usual recommendation for a single drive on an IDE
cable is to set it as master (or in some cases as "single"). But
again, if your set up works, I would stick with it and change only if
you start to have inconsistent problems again.

Let me know if you need a more complete explanation or if I can post
this as the official answer.
  --Maniac

---

Clarification of Question by vaac-ga on 23 May 2005 22:13 PDT

With the amount of useful information you gave me, even though I
cannot digest even half of it comprehensively at this time, I think
you can consider this as an official answer. However I would apreciate
if you could let me know why accessing yur url " 
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confJumpering-c.html"
prompted Norton Internet security to come up with a warning that "an
attempt to invade my computer" appeared, giving 127.0.0.1 as the
source of the attempted invasion.

Hello Vaac,

Hmm. About the last problem you mention - it may be because that site
has a pop up advertisement and your settings may have triggered the
message. I searched for the phrase you mentioned but did not find
anything specific - if that was not the exact phrase, include it in a
request for clarification (and indicate the version of Norton Internet
Security you are using) and I can look up the specific cause. The
address (129.0.0.1) by the way refers to your own system. If you
haven't tried it previously, loading Spybot Search and Destroy
  http://www.safer-networking.org/en/home/
which is freely available to diagnose possible spyware problems.

About the original problem, let me recap briefly:

 - the erratic behavior of the CDROM could be caused by a number of
factors. I listed a number of possibilities but your clarification
with the command line changes (loadhigh) appears to be the proper
solution.
 - I provided a couple references to the BIOS user's guide. As a side
note, one of those links is already dead - apparently the result of a
reorganization by the hosting site.
 - there are a number of specific terms you asked for explanation and
I provided both links and some more general information. In
retrospect, another good reference is at
  http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=magneticdisk
which has illustrations of tracks and sectors as well as descriptions
of a number of different disk types and capacities. It does not
address the specific questions but has the basics of magnetic disk
technology.
 - I noticed I did not talk much about what a BIOS does in general.
The Basic Input Output System (BIOS) provides a set of services to
help start up your system and interface with devices. See
  http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.jhtml?term=bios
for a nice illustration. Note that more modern operating systems
(e.g., Windows XP, Linux) may use the BIOS only to initialize the
computer and get started and then interface with the hardware
directly.
 - switching to a new operating system may require new hardware, see
the references provided previously for an explanation.

Good luck with your work.

  --Maniac

Thanks for the additional information. Very good throughout.
vaac