# 1782 - disk controller failure



## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

1782-disk controller failure ok whats this mean and how do i fix it. this doesnt sound good. its a compact presario 500mhz 256mb 10g hd win98 3yrs old blah,blah,blah! all the obvius things wont start it so i tried to run my quickrestore cd and it wont even load it i whent into startup bios and checked all the settings all ok i even reset the defaults i tried with the start up disc it loads but wouldnt with cd support ive had this problem before with my burner so i unplugged it and it now starts with cd rom support but the quick restore still wont load so i tried to fdisk and reformat that went ok and my drive is now clean now upon running setupit gets as far as scandisk and tells me windows needs..........kbs to install...... nothing else ever happens ive tried about ten times and it wont work

   

EDIT: just so no confusion i treid both athe quick restore cd and a cllean install from a win 98 cd


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## lyrical (Jul 26, 2002)

The disk controller failure error is more than likely related to your on board IDE controller -unless you have a PCI IDE controller. Generally I would interpret this type of error to mean that either the first IDE controller (the connector on the motherboard) is bad, the IDE plug in the back of the HD may be bad or have a bent pin, the IDE cable may be bad, or the actual HD controller itself may be going bad. 

Of course, it could be any of these things, and each problem has different reprocussions. So lets start simple.. 

Have you been moving the HD around? You'll want to try and swap your IDE cable anyway to eliminate it as a problem, so you might as well check for bent pins now. Try a new cable on the same IDE slot. If that doesnt work, move it to the other IDE slot. Make sure that you make any nessesary BIOS changes. If you have access to another HD that you know works, you may want to try that as well to iliminate the connector as the problem. 

It could also be an issue of the HD being physically damaged. You havn't by chance had a crash lately have you? 

Try some of this stuff, and get back to me.


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## kilowatt1 (Oct 27, 2001)

See HERE . It doesn't sound very promising.


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## LANMaster (Jan 6, 2003)

Excellent advice Lyrical.
My guess is that the bios setting is set for the wrong type.
Coolhand,
Backup all you can, and write down existing bios setting before changing much


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

well i changed the cable switched the ide controlors compaq doesnt let you change much in the bios all auto for the most part im not sure i like. i put another hard drive in from another machine and it just goes to black screen with a blinking curser wont even load with a start up disk? also i havent had any crashe but ive always had minor problems since day one invalid page faults and stuff but after sending it back to compaq twice they said there was nothing wrong and they couldnt duplicate my errors ya right what ever. but nothing so severe that it didnt work. i read the error post you gave me killowatt and it says replace hdd any other thoughts before i go bye a new hard drive?


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## kilowatt1 (Oct 27, 2001)

What model of Presario is it? You will probably need to go to Compaq's website and download the correct ROMpaq to get the correct parameters onto the hard drive before you can reinstall. Compaq unfortunately puts a lot of the necessary BIOS features/controls into a partition on the hard drive.


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

its a compaq presario 7360 i think i fuond the rompaq you suggesed i will give it a try if it is my hd failing any suggestions on what i should get


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## kilowatt1 (Oct 27, 2001)

If I'm not mistaken on the same page as the Rompaq there is a download for the system diagnostics which will help determine if the hard drive or any other hardware is defective. Click on the more info choices for installation instructions for the various downloads. Let us know how you do.

KILOWATT


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## kilowatt1 (Oct 27, 2001)

Coolhand,

The Rompaq you will need to use is "Presario System Rom 686C3 Update for Specific Models".

Kilowatt


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

i seem to be getting no were fast mind evyone that i can access my harddrive with 98 startup disc ive ran fdisk and reformatted already and it says that i have almost 10000mb of free space wich i partitioned correctly and im too the point of installing windows and when i run setup c: it say windows needs to check the disk or whatever scan disc flashes on then off usually you have to exit after it scans but it does'nt prompt me it just says that windows requires so many kbs on you .... sometimes i get a little more sometimes alittle less but itss only by a few letters 
and i ran the bootable diskettes from the rompaq and it says invalid system disk replace disk and try again but im no longer getting the disk controll failure error


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

and yes kilowat that is the download i found as well it says to make a bootable floopy with it and and start from a cold boot but it says invalid syste disk?


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## lyrical (Jul 26, 2002)

Hey guys, 

I was speaking with a couple other tech heads in class last night and mentioned your little problem. 

A couple of the guys who I happen to consider quite savvey in the world of motherboards and such detailed several perceptions that they have about Compaq 's earlyer products. Apparently they did have some lingering difficulties with some models not performing to the customer standard. To quote of of my friends whom I attend MCSE Cert classes with, "Granted, hardware problems arnt the only reason Compaq solt out to HP -but it was part of it."

I personally dont know how much validity there is behind his thesis, but I thought I would convey his thoughts to you. 

Have you tried hooking your HD to a working PC? Based on the information I have heard in the last 24 hours, if your HD works in another machine you may be able to simply replace your MOBO. 

Let me know what happens.


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

you say i may just be able to replace my mobo are you saying my mother board maybe bad or faulty and maybe compaq knew about it? one thing i remembered today was about a week ago i ran a diagnostic program on it and it was saying that my winapi hard drive failed there test and it may have been do to a bad cylinder? any thoughts on this or relation to my problem now? is that a mobo problem or a hard drive problem? sry you threw me a curve ball with the mobo thing now im really stumped


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

ok i put my hard drive in a working computer and it does the same as when its in mine i also put the harddrive from the working computer and it says unable to access the disk does this mean the end of my comcrap motherboard if so whaat should i replace it with that will allow the rest of my hardware to be compatible and still keep it cheap. also i am guessing since my hard drive wont work in the other machine that it is bad as well i allready ordered a 40gb western digital hd should be here today.


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## lyrical (Jul 26, 2002)

Given the fact that the HD did not work in another machine, and it also failed a diagnostic leads me to believe that your HD has crashed. 

You also tried hooking a working HD up to the machine, didn't you? If a working HD did not work, the problem may be harder to forsee. 

Some of the older machines have problems with HDs when the jumper settings do not corispond to the physical location of the drive on the cable. Meaning it needs to be set to master AND be the first device on the IDE cable. Having a slave as the first device on the IDE cable will cause you problems in older machines. 

Try hooking either the old HD or the new HD you ordered up to the machine, and boot with a DOS boot disk. Go into FDISK and look at the partition tables. If it shows the tables, then the master boot record and FAT table should be in tact. While you are in FDISK look for the ACTIVE PARTITION. At least one partition needs to be labeled as active in order for the system to boot correctly. 

While you have the DOS disk in, try running scandisk on the drive. It may not work, but it may also tell you weather or not the drive is shot. 

It is starting to sound like the drive is shot. We'll see. 

Plz let me know what this brings.


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

first of all yes i put the drive for the machine im on now into the nonworking machine and it said the disk could not be read?
next i put the {bad?) drive back in and ran f disk and can veiw the the partitions the c: 1 primary 8586mb, 2 ext dos 952mb and 1 is active the ext dos contains 1 logical drive the d: drive.
next i ran from the prompt scandisk c: and it says drive c can not be scanned. i treid to scan the floppy and it worked if that means anything


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

in addition i havent yet recieved the drive i ordered yet so i dont have that to work with


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## lyrical (Jul 26, 2002)

Things seem to still be pointing at the controller. Have you been adding any hardware, software, or peripherals near the first occurence of this error? Taken the HD out lately? Done any sort of maintenence with utility programs? 

If you have been adding, moving or changing hardware or software, there may be some sort of conflict or corruption. It is getting hard to tell.. 

Correct me if I am wrong.. 
You tried a working drive in the non working machine.. no good.
Tried the non working drive in a working machine.. no good. 
Tried new IDE cables, and both IDE connectors.. no good. 
You can see the drives in FDISK/device manager.
You can never see them in explorer. 
Forgetting anything?

If you've been adding hardware specifically, try pulling all the non essencial parts. Leave yourself only the mouse, keyboard, and monitor. Try that. Even if you've just added RAM, pull it out. 

Keep me posted.


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

ok i stripped everything to the basics incl. memory i added but not recently know it says that setup cant be run ms dos mode.
scandisc still cant scan the c drive and fdisk still shows partitions im gonna try reformatting c drive again but it seems like we took a step backwards also i havent added any kind of new hardware the only messing around i did was putting this hard drive in it to diagnose some problems we were having with this one but i dont think i caused any of this i was very cautios unplugged everything kept myself grounded carefuly plugged in the connectors .....
ok reformatting c just finished and it still is saying that the program setup can not be run in ms-dos mode? now what?


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

ok i finally got scan disk to run i dont know why or what i did different to ge it to work but im about half way thru the surface scan and it hasnt found a single bad cluster! and so far there all free except a portion of the first cluster?? i assume this is either the part of the bios kilowat refered to that compaq sometimes puts on the hard drive or the virtual drive the startup disc uses or all others may it be a viruse of some sort? i thought after the reformat it would be totally clean?ive done so much switching around i think when i put the hd we are having trouble with in this machine i may have put itin as a slave and not changed the setting from master to slave so it wouldnt of worked in this machine so know im guessing my hard drive is good?scandisk at 58% and not a single bad cluster!!!


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

ok this is weird after all this scandisk finished not a bad cluster or anything so i decided to start fresh deleted partions and reformatted then rebuilt partions. setup now runs to the point of the win98 setup page preparing to install but then it says an invalid command was entered? i just finished two other computers so i mfamiliar with the setup process, i refered to the setup /? as it suggests and there is just a few shorcuts to put in but to satisfy myself i put that hole comand in they give you starting with the bacth file and ending with the temp directory i also tried few variations of there suggestion but it says the same thing every time. so i figured it could be something with the compaq and needing proper bios configurations before i could install win98 so i put my restore cd back in and it rebuilt partions the way it came i made d smaller only10% for backups they want20% then it starts the restore hit entert to continue i hit enter says working and it freezes several restart and samething.i dont understand why i got this far is the controller shooting in and out? nothings making sense since it seems to stop at the same points???and i checked all the cds there fine i treat them like gold.


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## coolhand420 (Dec 29, 2002)

oh and the only things i pulled out was the modem came with it ,my netwok adapter had in for about year and a half,and the 256mb i put in in the begining of summer all have worked fine and never had a single problem with any of them


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## lyrical (Jul 26, 2002)

This is getting all too interesting. Strange even. 

Actually I would guess that the first little smigent of memory you see being used is the MBR (master boot record), and FAT (file allocation table).

Corruption in either of these would result in major problems with the data on the drive, however the drive itself would still function. It would explain why the drive is not working if there was data on it, but you have formatted this drive so the MBR and FAT would have been recreated. This likewise would not explain why a working drive does not work in your machine.

Hmm.. I have to look something up. I'll get back to you later.


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## steve33 (Jun 14, 2004)

Hi All,
 Had this problem where i work on a few machines, what it says below worked for me, hope it helps, drop me a line and let me know

You Just remove the CMOS battery from system board and boot once after booting shutdown your system and insert the battery back, again start your system and press F1 next time it won't ask you for pressing F1. And you will not get the error controller disk failure.
I hope it will help you.

:up: Stevie :up:


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## Sunrider (Oct 13, 2004)

I was afraid of that, I tried switching 3 different harddrives and it keeps coming up with the Disk Controllor failure.

I could try tracking down another IDE cable maybe that will help if not its no big loss because it was a junker to begin with

its an older model compaq 167 mhz


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## slingstatic (Dec 26, 2004)

what do i do!?1?1??!?!
its a compaq armada 7400


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