| Forum Home | ||||
| Press F1 | ||||
| Thread ID: 33384 | 2003-05-15 00:17:00 | Flashing (the BIOS) | B.M. (505) | Press F1 |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 144237 | 2003-05-15 00:17:00 | Just a wee problem I thought I should run past you experts prior to taking some rather drastic action. The position is this. The 4gig HD in my old PC Direct 233mhz MMX is getting full thanks to music files accumulating. No problem, I’ll just buy a bigger HD. Woooh, not that easy. :( The smallest HD now available is 20gig. The handbook for the motherboard says it can only handle a max of 8.4gb. Question 1: Will flashing the BIOS get around this problem? Question2: What precautions do you recommend prior to undertaking this rather risky business. (It’s something I’ve never done before but keen to have a go if it will get around the impass) Tech Info: Motherboard = P5TX-Bpro ver 2.1d BIOS = Award Modular ver 4.51pg Date 31/5/97 (Phoenix Technologies) Operating System Win98se Ram: 256meg Cheers Bob |
B.M. (505) | ||
| 144238 | 2003-05-15 00:24:00 | To be honest, your computing joy will be more complete if you upgrade your motherboard. 233Mhz is a little on the lower-end nowadays, and for under $250, you can have yourself a Brand New 1.3Ghz Duron PC motherboard and processor. There will then be no worries about flashing the BIOS. Check QMB.co.nz, as you might be able to push the price down to $200 depending on what your needs are.... Im not too sure, as I havent done it, but was looking into it when I needed to reset the BIOS password. AFAIK, The best place would be to start at google. And, from what I understand, you have to make it boot from a floppy disk which then updates the BIOS, but again, I am unsure as I havent actually done it myself. Hope this helps Chill. |
Chilling_Silently (228) | ||
| 144239 | 2003-05-15 00:32:00 | An updated BIOS may fix the problem but if not the new HDD should come with a floppy disk with some software on it to allow older PC's to see the full 20GB. If it doens't come with it you can download it for free from the HDD manufacturers website. As Chill said though maybe it's time for an upgrade on the rest of the PC as well. Prices are really good at the moment! |
CYaBro (73) | ||
| 144240 | 2003-05-15 00:41:00 | How old is the manual? Should have a date it was published. There is overlay software that Seagate provides to allow for the whole drive to be accessed, flashing the BIOS to the latest should fix this problem, who knows your BIOS may be newer than the manual, if your BIOS supports LBA mode then it most likely will be able to detect the 20gig drive. 8.4GB was a BIOS limitation at one point but has been fixed for modern motherboards. |
Kame (312) | ||
| 144241 | 2003-05-15 01:29:00 | Thanks everyone. Chill, been down that road, but again it’s not as simple as upgrading just the motherboard. There’s the small matter of the case, the power supply, the RAM, the modem (no ISA slots) and on and on it goes. Anyway, this old clunker is plenty fast enough for me. CYaBRO, yes I’ve heard of some software that is supposed to get around the problem but I’ve also heard there are a few hang-ups with this software. Can anybody elaborate? Kame, manual accompanied computer and is dated 1997 the same as the BIOS. The BIOS certainly supports LBA mode but apparently only up to 8.4 gigs. :( |
B.M. (505) | ||
| 144242 | 2003-05-15 02:06:00 | I have used Seagate overlay software, a long time ago, when there was a 528? MB barrier. It caused no problems, just a slightly different boot process, as this software is processed first before io.sys. From memory you get a message on the screen giving you the option to continue booting from the HDD, or from a floppy. I would use it. Although it can be downloaded, you should also ask the vendor to supply all the utils that are supposed to come with new drives, most times they dont seem to offer you those unless you insist. |
Terry Porritt (14) | ||
| 144243 | 2003-05-15 02:22:00 | Hi Bob, A few years ago I upgraded the hard drive on my old-old (ie first) computer from 365MB :p to a 2 . 1GB Seagate HDD . Took it in to the shop to be done as I wasn't very geeky back then, but they used some overlay software like Kame mentioned to allow the larger HDD to be used . I do not know exactly what it does but no way can I use the larger space without it . There is an option to press the spacebar upon bootup if I do not want it to do its job but cannot remember what that was for . To boot into DOS instead of Windows? I forget . As for "hangups" I am not sure what they would be . Try having a look around Seagate's website to see if they still have that option and if you cannot find anything there send them an email . They have been extremely helpful to me in the past when I had questions . |
Susan B (19) | ||
| 144244 | 2003-05-15 02:37:00 | Hi BM, after a few seconds in google this turned up: www.ecs.com.tw Looks like you wont get much joy through the BIOS route, and I assumed as much given the age of your mobo >>Question 1: Will flashing the BIOS get around this problem? nope. >>Question2: What precautions do you recommend prior to undertaking this rather risky business. (It’s something I’ve never done before but keen to have a go if it will get around the impass) if you want to be really paranoid, get a UPS just in case the power does something crazy while flashing... use a brand new floppy disc.. I reckon you should really look for a cheap upgrade option.. it'll be far easier that way... another thing you could try is to pickup a PCI IDE controller from DSE and plug your new hdd into that... |
whetu (237) | ||
| 144245 | 2003-05-15 02:46:00 | Even with a brand new floppy, I'd do a full scandisk on it first. | antmannz (28) | ||
| 144246 | 2003-05-15 03:25:00 | The site www.wimsbios.com is an excellent source of BIOS info and links to an vast database of BIOS files. | Russell D (18) | ||
| 1 2 3 | |||||