I/O Disk Error...Please help

Monstermile · 06-04-2003, 01:36 PM

Tried to get help on another bb with this problem but no luck. So here it goes:

I had a brand new KT4 Ultra mobo that after some serious diagnostics turned out to apparently have a bad IDE controller. Bad right out of the box. Well I had to RMA it to MSI because I missed the newegg RMA period by a few days. Got the replacement (a refurb instead of new) and now I am having issues again. I turned it on and got a boot failure with the Win98 boot disk. All I get is I/O Disk Error..Replace Disk and Press Any Key. I got the Western Digital diags to load from the floppy so I wouldn't think it would be a floppy drive issue. Also I notice that right at start-up it says something about no 80 pin connector detected and something else not detected. It goes by too fast to read. What I have done so far....

-CMOS reset
-Tried several floppy and IDE cables
-Ran WD diags twice with no errors. Once before and once after a low level format
-Memory was previously tested on the original mobo
-Plus everything else that was tried with the original mobo problem

Where do I go from here. I'm getting pretty fed up now. I've had all these parts for my new system since April, but still have no system up and running.

Specifics:
MSI KT4 Ultra
Athlon 1700+ tbred B
512MB Kingston HyperX PC2700
WD 80g SE
Excaliber 9000 PRO 128MB
Win98

Thanks in advance

Redwolf · 06-04-2003, 01:41 PM

The 80 pin thing:

Means that you are using a 40-pin IDE cable. No worries, it'll still work. However, you won't be able to use UDMA at anything higher than ATA/33 (maybe not even that, I don't realy remember).

Basically, your boot disk is bad. Try using another disk. Oh, and floppies have a life span of about 5 uses beofre they explode taking everything on them with it. Just so you know...

Monstermile · 06-04-2003, 01:46 PM

Really?? Because when I used the WD diags to format/partition you need to use the Win98 boot disk and it worked fine there. Just when I went to boot to start my install I got that message. I'll give it a shot when I get home but the way my luck has been going I would be fortunate if it were that simple.

Redwolf · 06-04-2003, 01:51 PM

My guess is that only a few secotrs on it are bad, or the Boot Record on it is corrupt. Not worth trying to fix. Just head over to www.bootdisk.com and make a new one.

Monstermile · 06-04-2003, 02:19 PM

Thanks. I'll give it a shot and see what happens.

Monstermile · 06-04-2003, 06:04 PM

Ok I tried a few different boot disks and no luck. What's my next course of action?? Could this possibly be another bad mobo???

meese · 06-04-2003, 07:37 PM

Do you need to use a w98 floppy? Do you have the w98 CD? Can you set the BIOS to boot from the CD and try loading w98 that way? Another thing: does your BIOS recognize the hard drive? If it does then I would think your motherboard is ok as far as the IDE contoller goes.

Redwolf · 06-04-2003, 07:39 PM

The digital diags all work on the WD disc, right? Do they see the WD hard drive?

Monstermile · 06-04-2003, 09:43 PM

Yesterday when I got everything together I used the WD utilities to format and partition the drive. That went fine as well as the diags. The diags still run but when I go into the install drive option to format and partition it says invalid drive.

The BIOS does recognize the HD. And I do have a Win98 disc if I needed but I really don't want to install the os until I find out what the other issue is.

06-05-2003, 01:27 AM

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