Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!bionet!ames!pacbell!att!chinet!mcdchg!ddsw1!ddsw1!point!wek
From: wek@point.UUCP (Bill Kuykendall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Hard Disk Problems II
Keywords: Fixed disk at hardware
Message-ID: <[2113.1]comp.ibmpc;1@point.UUCP>
Date: 23 Sep 89 05:00:07 GMT
References: <4073@wpi.wpi.edu>
Lines: 25

>	12 MHZ IBM AT Compatible, AT-339 motherboard.
>	Western Digital WD1002-WA2 disk controller board
>	Miniscribe 3425 hard disk (20 Meg, 615 cyl 4 heads)
>	Award BIOS 3.01B (80286 support)
>
>	What happens is when it is powered up, the drive spins up,
>	and I get ERROR INITIALIZING HARD DISK 0 after about 20 seconds
>	of waiting with the select light on. The drive is perfectly fine
>	on other machines.

One suggestion:  
Take a look at the drive cables in the machine that doesn't work along with
a set in a machine that does work.  The wider of the 2 cables may have a
section of the cable twisted at the connector.  If the two cables (working
and non-working) are not the same in this respect, then the drive select
jumper or switch on the drive is not set properly.  

The controller that you are using only recognizes 2 drives (0 and 1).  A
switch or jumper controls this on the drive.  The 'cut and flip' in the
cable reverses the interpretation of this switch.  Most cables that support
2 drives have one flipped and one straight through, so that both drives use
(the default) DS1.

Bill Kuykendall
...ddsw1!point!wek