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From: awhite@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Andrew J. White)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Everex computers and IDE drives
Message-ID: <43702@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 24 May 91 04:59:00 GMT
Sender: news@netnews.upenn.edu
Reply-To: awhite@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Andrew J. White)
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
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Nntp-Posting-Host: eniac.seas.upenn.edu

I have an Everex STEP 286/12 computer with an MFM hard drive.  I am
trying to replace the hard drive with a Connor CP3104 (100MB IDE) drive.
I purchased Conner's own controller card, and used drive type 31 (98 megs),
which is what Everex tech support told me to use.  Here's what happened:

The drive (which according to Conner should *not* be low-level formatted)
was partioned with FDISK and then formatted.  Everything seemed to work
AOK until either (a) FORMAT would finish and give the error "Error
Creating FAT" or, (b) FORMAT would choke in the beginning and say
"Invalid drive selection" (in reference to drive C:) as if the
hard drive were not recognized.  SpeedSTOR and Disk Manager also choked.

So, I'm thinking, BIOS upgrade.  The current bios is a special version
of AMI Bios for this computer dated 2/89.  Problem is, Everex does not
sell a more recent BIOS, nor does AMI.  AMI says the problem is the
BIOS.  A generic AMI Bios will *not* work in the computer because of
the weird display window on the front of the computer.

So, who knows how to get it to work?  A different IDE adapter?  Strange
jumper settings on the Conner?  Conner advised me to upgrade the Bios :-(.


--
__________________________________________________________________________
 Andrew J. White    | U. of Pennsylvania    | awhite@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
 Comp. Science 1993 | School of Engineering | whiteaj@clutx.clarkson.edu