Packard Bell LG 204

[GrampaLee]

My grandson is working on an old computer and we are looking for some information on it. It is a Packard Bell Legend 204, 486DX2/66 with 8mb Ram. It has two ide but one does not appear to work. When he has tried to install a CD drive on the second cable position on the one that works it fails. The BIOS will not recognize a second hard drive or CD drive in the slave position. Looking for ideas and information.

[ahm]

I've rarely seen an actual "bad" IDE controller.
Usually it's one of the following:

Are both IDE ports turned on in the BIOS?
Are the IDE devices jumpered correctly? (master/slave or cable-select)
Is the IDE cable bad? (Try a known working IDE cable).

HTH,
Andy

[modem7]

It has two ide
By that, do you mean that:
a) there are two IDE connectors on the hard drive controller card (i.e primary IDE and secondary IDE), or
b) there are two IDE connectors on the hard drive end of the cable.
When he has tried to install a CD drive on the second cable position on the one that works it fails. The BIOS will not recognize a second hard drive or CD drive in the slave position.
If you have primary/secondary IDE ports on your hard drive controller card, try the following two configurations:

Primary IDE ------------- HARD DRIVE configured as Master (or 'single drive' if the drive has such a jumper position)
Secondary IDE ----------- CDROM configured as Master (or 'single drive' if the drive has such a jumper position)

Primary IDE ------------- HARD DRIVE #1 configured as Master (or 'single drive' if the drive has such a jumper position)
Secondary IDE ----------- HARD DRIVE #2 configured as Master (or 'single drive' if the drive has such a jumper position)

[RichiePops]

Hi, This tread was submitted by my grandpa, so HI! i bought a dual ide cable(for 2 devices on one ide). i connected black to motherboard, gray to hard drive and blue to the cdrom and it fails to detect anything. if i unplug the cdrom drive, it boots to dos and 3.1 fine. i did buy the system in ebay and we think it was dropped buring shipping or something because the floppy drive was crushed like someone opened the pc and hit it with a hammer. i need help and im REALLY confused, can anyone tell me why its doing this and how to fix it? the hard drive has no jumper ports and no jumper combos on the cdrom are helping. :( :confused: :( :confused: :( :confused:

[Druid6900]

What's the make and model number of the hard drive. Most HDs have jumpers either between the IDE cable and the power plug or on the drive logic board itself.

Given the above information, I should be able to find the jumper settings for you.

[Terry Yager]

I think the cable you describe is the wrong kind for your hardware. The blue connector is probably UDMA.

--T

[Druid6900]

I think the cable you describe is the wrong kind for your hardware. The blue connector is probably UDMA.

--T

That's true enough, Terry, but the ultra cable should still work on low-speed peripherals. The only difference is that the UDMA cable has separate signal ground lines for each signal line, it's just on low-speed stuff (33/66/100) the extra grounding isn't an issue. It just doesn't work the other way around.

[RichiePops]

its a conner, 541 mb, there are big letters on it, EWBK4WV hope this helps. i think i found the jumpers on the other end of the hard drive and set it as master(already was)

[ahm]

Obviously, you need to approach the problem systematically.

If you say the hard drive works by itself, then try it on both IDE controllers (primary and secondary).
Then you'll know whether both IDE controllers work.

Personally, I wonder if that CDROM drive is any good, especially if you're saying the floppy drive looks like it's been hit with a hammer. Or did the CDROM drive not come with this machine?

Try the CDROM drive on the IDE cable by itself to test if the BIOS sees it.
Does the CDROM light come on at all?
If not, is there another CDROM drive you can try?

Really, this is just basic troubleshooting.
If you work methodically, you should have this figured out in no time.
Just work slowly and keep notes.

Andy

[RichiePops]

i have tried the hard drive on both ide, only works on one. cdrom drive lights up and opens/closes fine but doesn't do anything, so there is definetly power to it. i replaced the floppy and that works good. i'll try the cdrom drive on by itself though

[RichiePops]

i also tried some known to be working cdrom drives too, they dont work.

[RichiePops]

i tried the cdrom drive by itself in the hard drive's ide the autotype times out and fails to detect it. im so STUCK!:confused:
it doesnt do anything in its own ide either.

[RichiePops]

maybe the cdrom drive doesn't work. i'll try some others i have in a different pc.

[modem7]

CDROM DRIVE

A CDROM drive is an ATAPI device. From an early IDE document:
"Beware that although ATAPI devices plug into the IDE interface, they differ considerably from an IDE hard disk. Caching controllers and other intelligent interfaces will not work unless they're ATAPI aware."
Maybe that's the scenario you're in - an early IDE controller.

MULTIPLE HARD DRIVES ON ONE IDE CABLE

In the very early days of IDE, getting drives to master/slave was painful. Sometimes to get a combination going, one had to swap the drives - master became slave, slave became master. Generally, if you stuck to drives from the manufacturer, you'd be right, but even some Seagate combinations failed. If I remember correctly, it worked every time I used drives of the same maker/model.
That was back in the days of drives under 100MB is size. The situation improved since then, but it can still happen. I've still got a Fujitsu 6GB drive that would not master/slave with one of my similar Maxtor drives.

[RichiePops]

the cdrom doesnt work by itself on either ide. the computer times out and fails to autotype adapter 0 master( main drive title in my bios) and nothing turns up in the bios except a drive with 0 mb of storage and no info such as cylinders, heads, etc. which means it detects nothing. VERY CONFUSED!:confused: ps how do i get a cdrom controller for it?

[modem7]

Drive types are for hard drives, not CDROM drives. For that reason, 'autotype' is not going to do anything.

I have two different 486DX-40 machines and neither of them give me any indication that an IDE CDROM drive is attached. Your machine will probably be similar.

You just have to assume that you've done the hardware setup correctly then proceed to install the DOS drivers. I say 'DOS drivers' because with a 486, you'll be running DOS or Win 3.X (which sits on DOS). The drivers are installed in CONFIG.SYS (the CDROM drive specific driver) and AUTOEXEC.BAT (MSCDEX.EXE). There are examples on the Internet.

The use of a Windows 98 boot diskette is a good option at this time. It contains a very good generic CDROM driver named OAKCDROM.SYS that works with a lot of old CDROM drives. Boot from the diskette, then at the menu, choose the 'Start computer with CD-ROM support' option. At the end of the boot process, MSCDEX will load and if all is okay will display something like 'Drive E: = Driver MSCDEX001 unit 0'. In that example, the CDROM drive is at E:

----------------------------------------------------------------
Other CDROM options:

1. Use a SCSI CDROM drive and SCSI card.
2. Use an external CDROM drive unit that connects to the parallel port (e.g. Backpack CDROM drive).

[chuckcmagee]

Oh ya, now that you mention it, I remember same thing with some bioses. Yep, no cdrom drive listed at all.

[rmay635703]

What model and type of CD-ROM is in there now? Does it have master/slave on it or Numbers?

Anyway...

Assuming that the CD-ROM drive is actually an IDE and not one with the blasted I/O numbers (aka used on a soundcard like mitsumi, sony, mitsubishi proprietary, in fact I've never seen an old 486 or lower packard bell that had an IDE cd only proprietary, but I digress)

For an IDE cd...

He would need to
A. Jumper the hard drive as master, not single

B. Setup the Bios for master = auto slave = NONE or CD-ROM (if its there)

C. Jumper the CD-ROM as slave and install it (yes you do this after setting up the bios

D. Boot and install the DOS cd-rom driver as in windows3.1/Dos the cd will not be automatically detected at all and do nothing until MSCDEX is properly installed with an appropriate config.sys driver.

Good Luck

[RichiePops]

the cdrom plugs into an ide slot on the motherboard and a plug on the sound card so it can play cd audio(part of pb's multimedia pack) i recently put a virtualpc emulator on mw windows 2000 pro pc and installed dos, 3.1, then 95 and it worked fine. at first it didnt because i forgot to install the driver for it, then it popped up in 3.1's file manager. the emulator had an amibios.

[RichiePops]

thanks rmay, your idea is a very good one, but i tried it and it seems that the only way it would work is if i had a cdrom option in the bios but i dont so i left the master alone and set adapter 0 slave as auto and it thinks its another hard drive. i also tried settind it as reserve but thats the same as none. i replaced the cdrom drivers though. does a new bios (such as award) come with a cdrom controller? i also need to know where i can get a compatible one free.

[facattack]

http://www.computerhope.com/ac.htm

I think you need to add the line: "C:\windows\win" at the bottom of autoexec. If that doesn't work, use the "Device=" prefix.

Anyway, this page defines typical settings for those two files. (I had to rebuild pretty much every important file from scratch to get my Packard Bell working. And I don't have a CD-ROM for it...)

Oh, have you tried LinkMaven? You can set your old computer to use the Dremote (Dos Remote) program, hook the computers up using a direct-cable connection plug plugged from the old computer's printer output to the new computer's printer output (male-to-male these plugs have), then use the proper LinkMaven transfer program on the newer computer to transfer files. :D (The cable is sold seperately and it's a $25 shareware program... :( ). But it works like a jiffy. :)

www.briggsoft.com/lmaven.htm

It doesn't compare to having a CD-ROM in the computer, but it is just stable enough to send a few files at a time (or one at a time) between computers. Another great file transfer utility is IntelliMover. It comes with a USB-to-USB cable and the needed direct-cable-connector cable. (But the software itself only works with a minimum of Windows 98 ... or is it Windows 95.) SO if you have both programs (download linkmaven, see if you can get the box version of IntelliMover), you're all set to transfer files.

[GrampaLee]

We have been trying lots of things. Finally got the ide ports all working, found atapi software at driverguide.com (good tip we got here to do that), that worked to get the CD drive working. Grandson is trying to get Win95 on it. Works with Dos and Win3.1 now and has a 1gig harddrive installed on it. Frustrating but fun.

[RichiePops]

I'll end up putting more ram in it and setting the 1 gig as a secondary hdd because the packard bell has a bunch of extra software that I can't get to work on the 1 gig. if I can find one of those programs to copy all the files to the 1 gig i will and set the stock 541 mb as a secondary hdd. the wierd thing about the cdrom is it only is detected when unjumpered, and the original one doesn't read at all so I tried to fit a different one in there but it doesnt let the mount slide into position all the way.

[RichiePops]

Well I put a different cdrom drive in it from a parts computer and amazingly it worked! I was able to install windows 95 which has been my only goal for the past 3 months or so. It is pretty slow but my grandpa is sending me more ram for a total of 16mb with an extra 8mb stick. thanks for all your help guys, youre the best!!!!!:D :p