Windows techie question

[Keef]

I have longish-standing fault in the PC which I've never been able to solve, and it's crashed the machine again so is now getting attention.

The reported error is:

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Ide\IdePort8.

The problem is that I don't know which device is IdePort8. Nothing in all the clever MS stuff I've Googled says how to identify which device is on which IDE port. Can anyone here advise where I can find this?

[Flintstone]

Twenty five views and no answers? I'm beginning to suspect our preponderance of IT types aren't all they're cracked up to be

[Keef]

No, it is a hard one. There are lots of similar questions around the web, with the usual selection of the desperate remedies (new motherboard, reinstall Windows, new computer, use a bigger hammer) and no meaningful replies. Even the Microsoft Knowledgeable dodged the question when asked directly.

I have greater faith in the experts on here.
I mean, if the computer knows that \Device\Ide\IdePort8 is ill, it must know which device that is. It just chooses not to tell me.

Sadly, nothing I can see calls things in that way. I have Disks 0 to 7 and CD-ROM 0; I have ATA Channel 0 (three of those), ATA Channel 1 (three of those), ATA Channels 2 to 5, various "Controllers", and a long list of USB Hubs and Mass Storage Devices. But the Error Log doesn't use any of those numbers...

If the problem were very frequent I'd just try disconnecting one thing at a time.

[Peter Pan]

Keef, does one of your trusty Linux bootable cd's not offer some help? Windoze can be a bit naff at identifying IDE drives sometimes.

[pb6797]

Keef, just a thought but if you go to Device Manager you can toggle it to "view by connection" which will at least show you which channel/controller each disk is hanging off.

I'm not sure which version of Windows you said you were on - do you have the disk management console option available?

[George512]

99% sure that it will be a driver issue.

What motherboard are you running? Is that on an IDE device? Or a SATA controller running in IDE mode? If SATA, any driver updates available? Has it persisted after a reinstall?

Keef, does one of your trusty Linux bootable cd's not offer some help? Windoze can be a bit naff at identifying IDE drives sometimes.

Windows is a bit naff full stop.

[pb6797]

Ooh, just thought - could be DMA versus PIO mode too?

Worth drilling in to each drive in the Device Manager and having a look at the settings tab to see what mode it is using. Any slower stuff (CD-ROM etc.) drop back to PIO and see if it makes it go away. While you're there you can poke around in the Location Property on the Details tab.

Do you have a BIOS screenshot for us?

[Keef]

Thanks for the ideas.

I'd tried most of those apart from reinstalling (no way!) and Linux. The BIOS and drivers are up to date, and there are drives using the same drivers that are behaving. All the drives are SATA on SATA ports, apart from a couple of externals on USB connections for backing up, and an external on an eSATA connection.

Devices by connection wasn't any help.

Nothing on Microsoft's forums (or anywhere else that I've found) had the answer, although quite a few folk were asking the question. They mostly got told to reinstall, or buy a new motherboard, or a new PC, or new memory, or... (get the picture). Sledgehammers rather than diagnosis, I call that.

I decided to get aggressive with it, by making it back up the SSD to each HD in turn. All were fine until I got to the Samsung 1TB external drive on the eSATA port - which then produced a long series of Event 11, atapi, etc. The offending drive is drive 0 on SATA controller 1 - no obvious connection to \Device\Ide\IdePort8 . However, I think I have the answer...

Control Panel - Device Manager - Disk Drives - right click on each drive, select Properties - "Details and Physical Device Object Name" reveals that the offending drive identifies as \Device\Ide\IdeDeviceP8T0L0-a - I reckon the P8 bit means Port8 as above.

I'm still being delicate with the PC while I make sure the SSD is behaving - no problems yet, and it's blindingly fast compared with the conventional SATA HD it replaced. Come February I'll have a tidy up and put a different drive in the eSATA caddy to see if it stays Port 8 and/or behaves.