Message - HDD Controller Failure

Last update: 6th November, 1995

Message - HDD Controller Failure

Message - HDD Controller Failure
Last Updated: 5th December, 1994

Symptoms
The following messages at boot time (wording may differ slightly): HDD Controller Failure Press F1 to continue.

Hardware
Most types of hard drives.

Problem
There has been an ongoing discussion of this message and its various causes. Among the things that can cause this are:
 * Incorrect data in CMOS setup (wrong or missing drive geometry, drive not "enabled", etc.). This can be the result of a failing CMOS battery or acidental user intervention.
 * IRQ conflicts with other devices.
 * Master Boot Record and/or Partition Table for the boot drive is mangled.
 * Improperly mastered/slaved IDE drives.
 * Incompatible IDE drives (example: many Conner drives will not work when installed as as Slave and another brand of drive is set as Master).
 * Active Primary partition is non-bootable (bad boot record, etc.).
 * Adapter not firmly seated in slot.
 * Last floppy drive in bootup sequence is bad or improperly attached.
 * Hard drive cable loose or twisted, or has a broken wire.
 * Drive or adapter failure. Not frequent, but it does happen. Also may be caused by a failing floppy drive.

Fix
FDISK can be used to display the current partition status, and to set the correct partition as "startable" (active Primary partition). For systems with Boot Manager installed, this will normally be the Boot Manager partition; for Dual Boot systems where Boot Manager is not installed this will normally be the partition containing DOS and OS/2.

If the CMOS Setup information does not match the actual drive geometry (cylinders, heads, sectors), it should be corrected. Some BIOS Setup programs are able to obtain this information directly from the drive. Failing that, many new IDE drives have the drive geometry conveniently printed on a label on top of the drive. Otherwise, you'll need to consult your drive manufacturer or its Technical Support BBS. Or ask a friend or colleague who has the same drive.

A bad Master Boot Record/Partition Table can be fixed by doing an FDISK /NEWMBR (recent versions of the DOS FDISK are reported as supporting a similar feature with the syntax FDISK /MBR).

IRQ and I/O address (IOA) conflicts can located by a careful examination of the manuals of all adapters in the system. More often they are located by removing all non-critical adapters, then replacing adapters one by one until the problem recurs. Note that the last adapter replaced is only one of two (or more) contributing to the problem; you may want to remove all but that adapter and see if the problem disappears, then replace the remaining adapters until the second "IRQ sharer" is located.

Once located, IRQ and IOA problems can generally be fixed by reassigning IOAs or IRQ levels used by one or more adapters.

Cables and adapters can be swapped with known working units to narrow down the problem cause.