Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!cica!gatech!hubcap!panders
From: panders@hubcap.clemson.edu (paul f anderson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Help Wanted: Hard Disk Not Ready?
Message-ID: <6465@hubcap.clemson.edu>
Date: 14 Sep 89 20:30:48 GMT
References: <1743@convex.UUCP>
Organization: Clemson University, Clemson, SC
Lines: 29

From article <1743@convex.UUCP>, by harper@rigel.uucp (David Harper):
> In article <8909130841.AA14701@euler.Berkeley.EDU> ndeng@EULER.BERKELEY.EDU (Nan Deng) writes:
>>
>>
>>Recently I bought a 25 MHz 386 and encountered a weird problem about the 
>>hard disk. The mother board is made by MICRONICS with PHOENIX 386 BIOS
>>PLUS ver 1.10 10. The hard disk is CONNOR C3104 (104 MB) partitioned into
>>3 logical disks. The problem is: when I use the "Turbo" mode (i.e.  memory
>>cache is on), sometimes I get a message saying "disk C is not ready. Abort,
> 
> I too have a similar problem with the Micronics 25 MHz motherboard and the
> Phoenix BIOS.  Although my main disk controller works okay (Adaptek 2372),
> I suddenly developed the same symptoms as you have described with all drives
> attached to my CompatiCard (ie: 360K-5.25, 720K-3.5, 1.44-3.5).  As with you,

I believe that the problems that you are experienceing are a result of
the BIOS in your machines NOT being modified by the manufacturer to
handle the higher speed of the new CPU/Motherboard. Somewhere down in
the bios there is a CONSTANT that is used to determine how many times to
spin in aloop waiting for the controller to repond. Of course the faster
the CPU the larger this Constant needs to be. This is because the faster
CPU executes the less time it takes to do n trips through the timing
loop. 

Solution to your problem may be to get a BIOS upgrade.
Of course it could be . . . or . . . .


			P. F. Anderson