WDCTRL Message

[FZWG]

Appreciate some assistance.

Trying to help someone with an old PC which runs W3.1

The W3.1 screen flashes, and a message comes up:

The Microsoft Windows 32-bit disk driver (WDCTRL) validation failed at phase 03, 26. To continue starting Windows without the 32 bit disk driver, press any key.

If any key is pressed, the PC goes to a black screen and nothing happens.

Any clues how to get beyond this point into W3.1??

[andyms18a]

try this http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;113751

[GaryRouth]

Been a while, so this is mostly a guess: but try checking in the Bios to see if the hard drive lists itself as it should (is it set to "Auto", or do the exact numbers have to be entered manually as a "User Defined" disk [exact cylinders, heads, sectors] See if the owner has a record of the original Bios settings, and if things have changed. The CMOS battery on a mainboard of that era might be ready for replacement, and might not be holding the settings.

Here's an excerpt from a MS Knowledge Base article that led to my guess: "In Windows and Windows for Workgroups versions 3.1 and later, 32-bit disk access is provided by a FastDisk driver called WDCTRL. WDCTRL compares the total number of cylinders specified for the hard disk in the CMOS memory in the BIOS Parameter Block (BPB) with the number of cylinders reported by the hard disk in response to an Identify Drive command. If the BIOS reports more than 1024 cylinders, WDCTRL validation does not work regardless of whether the system BIOS or bus adapter supports geometry translation or INT13h extensions. "

The other thing mentioned in the article is disk size. Over 1024 cylinders seems to be a problem for that driver. If I'm remembering correctly, is that the 504mb limit? (Seems like it was one of those - either the 504mb, 2gb, or 8gb - pretty fuzzy in my memory these days, working with 120gb drives). See if the owner knows whether or not he/she had to use a drive overlay (like Disk Manager, Ez-Bios, etc) to overcome bios limitations. . .

But my first hunch is the Bios settings for the drive might be off. . .

If I'm right, maybe I should go buy a Lottery ticket - pretty lucky.
. . . Gary

[p.s. ...if it turns out that WDCTRL shouldn't be running (because the disk is indeed larger than 1024 cylinders, etc. - I believe it can be commented out of the system file that loads it - you'd have to do that from Dos (via bootdisk). I'm guessing it would be in system.ini or config.sys? . . . and if the other 3rd party driver is loaded, it might work after that. Or you may need edit the file to load the 3rd party driver]
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late edit ---> looks like andy already found an article that matches perfectly - don't have to guess after all!

[FZWG]

Thanks for the replies.

Ended up DOS editing the System.ini file entry: 32BitDiskAccess=on
to 32BitDiskAccess=off

That took care of the problem