Ami Bios Upgrade Help

G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.packardbell (More info?)

Hi there,

I need a little help. I recently Purchased a new hard drive for a
machine that came off the arc. The hard drive is a western digital 20
gig drive. The machine is an old pentium machine from 1992 roughly. I
have installed windows on the machine but noticed after that only 8.6
gig is actually available i tried using partition magic to make the
reast of the drive available but got nothing. then i managed to get
myself a diagnostic tool from WD and that indicated that the bios was
not allowing the drive to function fully.


This is the bios that needs updating Amibios 1.00.11.DNOR

I had to change that battery on the system as it was dead has been
some time now and also the hard drive that was on there had been
basically beated to death by god knows what cos it wont boot anymore
hence the new hard drive. The drive that i took out was 20 gig but
what i dont know is if it had the full 20 gig available or not. ive
tried to flash the bios but with no luck and as ive never done this
before im kind of looking for a bit if hand holding to help me through
it i dont wanna mess the motherboard up by getting it wrong.

Any guidlelines that might help me through this would be much
appreciated.

Daz!
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.packardbell (More info?)

So i take it the 20 gig drive i took from the machine before probably
didnt register as a 20 gig drive in the first place?

darrenfoster1976@gmail.com (Darren Foster) wrote in message news:<1d368f5.0407281951.5d688e56@posting.google.com>...
> Hi there,
>
> I need a little help. I recently Purchased a new hard drive for a
> machine that came off the arc. The hard drive is a western digital 20
> gig drive. The machine is an old pentium machine from 1992 roughly. I
> have installed windows on the machine but noticed after that only 8.6
> gig is actually available i tried using partition magic to make the
> reast of the drive available but got nothing. then i managed to get
> myself a diagnostic tool from WD and that indicated that the bios was
> not allowing the drive to function fully.
>
>
> This is the bios that needs updating Amibios 1.00.11.DNOR
>
> I had to change that battery on the system as it was dead has been
> some time now and also the hard drive that was on there had been
> basically beated to death by god knows what cos it wont boot anymore
> hence the new hard drive. The drive that i took out was 20 gig but
> what i dont know is if it had the full 20 gig available or not. ive
> tried to flash the bios but with no luck and as ive never done this
> before im kind of looking for a bit if hand holding to help me through
> it i dont wanna mess the motherboard up by getting it wrong.
>
> Any guidlelines that might help me through this would be much
> appreciated.
>
> Daz!
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.packardbell (More info?)

The Intel-made Orlando board (BIOS ID 1.00.11.DN0R) has a built-in BIOS
limitation causing it to recognize no more than 8.4GB of capacity of a hard
drive, typical of Socket 7 Pentium motherboards. The BIOS in your system is the
latest, so flashing it will not do any good.

Your best bet is a cheap and older (probably used) hard disk BIOS add-in card, a
card with its own disk BIOS which effectively replaces the hard disk BIOS on the
motherboard... Ben Myers

On 28 Jul 2004 20:51:41 -0700, darrenfoster1976@gmail.com (Darren Foster) wrote:

>Hi there,
>
>I need a little help. I recently Purchased a new hard drive for a
>machine that came off the arc. The hard drive is a western digital 20
>gig drive. The machine is an old pentium machine from 1992 roughly. I
>have installed windows on the machine but noticed after that only 8.6
>gig is actually available i tried using partition magic to make the
>reast of the drive available but got nothing. then i managed to get
>myself a diagnostic tool from WD and that indicated that the bios was
>not allowing the drive to function fully.
>
>
>This is the bios that needs updating Amibios 1.00.11.DNOR
>
>I had to change that battery on the system as it was dead has been
>some time now and also the hard drive that was on there had been
>basically beated to death by god knows what cos it wont boot anymore
>hence the new hard drive. The drive that i took out was 20 gig but
>what i dont know is if it had the full 20 gig available or not. ive
>tried to flash the bios but with no luck and as ive never done this
>before im kind of looking for a bit if hand holding to help me through
>it i dont wanna mess the motherboard up by getting it wrong.
>
>Any guidlelines that might help me through this would be much
>appreciated.
>
>Daz!
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.packardbell (More info?)

Darren,

Unless the previous 20GB drive used "BIOS overlay" software provided by the
drive manufacturer, the BIOS would limit its capacity to 8.4GB. So in all
likelihood, the previous drive showed only 8.4GB, not 20GB. (This is not
unusual. Way back, HP sold a model of its Vectra series with a 2.1GB hard
drive. Now 2.1GB was also the limit for a drive partition in the original
brain-dead Windows 95A. When production of 2.1GB ceased, HP shipped 2.5GB
drives with 2.1GB partitions and 400MB of wasted and unused capacity. But the
systems did meet the paper specification requirement of 2.1GB.)

"BIOS overlay" software, although free of charge, is widely regarded as a very
poor substitute for real BIOS support for larger drive capacities... Ben Myers

On 29 Jul 2004 03:19:49 -0700, darrenfoster1976@gmail.com (Darren Foster) wrote:

>So i take it the 20 gig drive i took from the machine before probably
>didnt register as a 20 gig drive in the first place?
>
>darrenfoster1976@gmail.com (Darren Foster) wrote in message news:<1d368f5.0407281951.5d688e56@posting.google.com>...
>> Hi there,
>>
>> I need a little help. I recently Purchased a new hard drive for a
>> machine that came off the arc. The hard drive is a western digital 20
>> gig drive. The machine is an old pentium machine from 1992 roughly. I
>> have installed windows on the machine but noticed after that only 8.6
>> gig is actually available i tried using partition magic to make the
>> reast of the drive available but got nothing. then i managed to get
>> myself a diagnostic tool from WD and that indicated that the bios was
>> not allowing the drive to function fully.
>>
>>
>> This is the bios that needs updating Amibios 1.00.11.DNOR
>>
>> I had to change that battery on the system as it was dead has been
>> some time now and also the hard drive that was on there had been
>> basically beated to death by god knows what cos it wont boot anymore
>> hence the new hard drive. The drive that i took out was 20 gig but
>> what i dont know is if it had the full 20 gig available or not. ive
>> tried to flash the bios but with no luck and as ive never done this
>> before im kind of looking for a bit if hand holding to help me through
>> it i dont wanna mess the motherboard up by getting it wrong.
>>
>> Any guidlelines that might help me through this would be much
>> appreciated.
>>
>> Daz!