Hard disk not recognized IBM Thinkpad A22nm

[ACMe]

This is an old Laptop where I want to install Ubuntu to help me learn about it while unemployed. Its hard drive (30Gb) went south and bought a Western Digital (WD1600BEVE) with 160 gb to substitute it.
The laptop is a
Thinkpad A22m Type 2628-TTU
Bios version 1.09 KUET36WW
Bios date 2003-05-08 (latest from IBM)
CPU Pentium III
CPU Speed 1000 MHz
Memory 512 (max)
IDE interface 3066

From the little bit I know from reading in the Web it seems that the Bios cannot recognize it because of its size being more than 32Gb.
Is there some way to fool the Bios to rrcognize it or anything else to make it work?

Thanks in advance.

 

[MrLinux]

Have you tried a BIOS upgrade, the old ThinkPads are still well supported.

 

[ACMe]

Have you tried a BIOS upgrade, the old ThinkPads are still well supported.

Thanks for your answwer.
Yes, I upgraded it to their latest available upgrade but it is from 2003 and there are no more upgrades.