neilinoz Posted April 13, 2004 Report Share Posted April 13, 2004 I posted a few weeks ago regarding this matter and thanks for all your comments. I eventually did find the little jumpers for both the Hard Drives - my current 4gb and my new 40gb. For some reason, however, the BIOS can't seem to recognise the 40gb. I have put the jumper in "Master" and disconnected my 4gb. I have put it on "Slave" and had my 4gb on "Master". I have put it on "Master" and put the 4gb on "Slave". I have switched the drives around in their bays so that the connectors were swapped. I have disconnected the CD-ROM drive so the 40gb can use the cable instead. All to no avail. Everytime I get into Bios, and whether I put it on "Auto" or "Normal" or "LBA" the Hard drive detection comes up with a big fat 0. I'm tempted to believe that the Bios needs to change. It is a Gigabyte GA6-BXC Rev 1.9 board manufactured in 1998. The Hard Drive was manufactured in February 2004. Any thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted April 13, 2004 Report Share Posted April 13, 2004 What happens if you set the 40GB to MASTER and disconnect the 4GB completely ? If this is not recognised by itself then it sounds like BIOS ...If it is recognised it could be a problem between the two drives which is resolvable other ways. Try it all alone set to master or master/no slave present and see what happens. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 13, 2004 Report Share Posted April 13, 2004 Yes, it is a bios problem. There are manufacture drive overlays thatwill make it work (not advisable) or go HERE and get a new bios. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonMage Posted April 13, 2004 Report Share Posted April 13, 2004 There is a second possibility that the hard drive you bought is DOA. Can you verify the hard drive you buy as working if you put it in another (preferably more modern) computer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cannonfodder Posted April 13, 2004 Report Share Posted April 13, 2004 You can also try going into the bios and selecting the set to default option. Sometimes this forces resets. But I would simply toss the 4 gig. If you want a second drive, go get another 40 gig or larger. I got a 80 gig for 60 bucks at bestbuy (after rebates). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted April 13, 2004 Report Share Posted April 13, 2004 In some cases, setting the bios to plug and play os = no and letting linux do its thing works too; but in those cases I guess the bios would see at least 8GB of the drive, afaik... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilinoz Posted April 14, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 14, 2004 OKay, to deal with all your replies... Gowator - yes I have tried to put the 40gb as Master and have disconnected the 4gb. This didn't work. DragonMage - The possibility of a DOA Hard drive is a real possibility. It is fairly new, though. I did, however, have it delivered in the mail. CannonFodder - Ditching the 4gb is one of my goals, but I need to copy everything on it onto the 40gb First!!! :lol: I am also rebuilding my old Acer P2-266 (now with a 333) and I need a Hard Drive for that as well. I will try your suggestion, though. aRTee - I'll attempt this one too. If it is the Bios, can anyone tell me how to Flash it without using DOS? (I live in Australia, so ordering a new BIOS chip and chip removal tool is quite expensive compared to all you rich Americans! Although not until the US dollar collapses in the next few months) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisM Posted April 14, 2004 Report Share Posted April 14, 2004 I had to flash my BIOS just a few days ago in order that I could install mdk9.2. I went to Award (http://www.award-bios.com/) - sorry, don't know how to make a link to the site without saying who it is. For $25.00 (about £14.00 UK sterling) I was able to flash my BIOS and it took just a few of minutes: Confirm the BIOS idstring details on web site (they have an 'easy' how to); you then receive an email within 24 hours to confirm your spec as provided. On payment, you'll further receive 2 emails - one with a zip file, the other with easy to follow instructions. You unzip onto a boot disk (if you don't know how to make a boot disk, the instructions explain). stick the disk into PC. Turn on, it boots up and does some jiggerypokery to the BIOS, press a key or two. Done in less than 5 minutes. Easy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arthurking Posted April 15, 2004 Report Share Posted April 15, 2004 Why wouldn't you wan't to use DOS to flash your bios? Even though what I'm going to suggest could be considered morally corrupt, I'd use DrDOS 7.x from Boot Disk.com I use it all the time, it's about 100Kb so it leaves plenty of space for your exe and bin files. Even though it uses caldera(@#$%'ing *&!^heads) dos its perfect for bios flashing. Go to gigabyte's website for exact instructions on flashing bios. There's only one way to find out how to flash a bios, and that's to flash a bios. Don't be scared of it even though you read that it could be totally fatal to your comp. I did (maybe?) loose a motherboard from a bios failure. It was a POS board from PCCHIPS that had lots of problems. I'm now glad it failed, coz I went out to the swap meets and found a spankin' new slot1 board for 35 bucks and never looked back cheers buddy Caldera? (spit, cough, fart, spew....bastards).......... but it works. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarissi Posted April 15, 2004 Report Share Posted April 15, 2004 The other and QUICKER option, is to use the Detect Hard Disks (drives) option at the main BIOS menu. It should have that option! Those old mobos have old HDD info in them, and newer drives need to be explicitly detected. If you get the HDD detected, select the LBA option (it will give 3 options for the geometry). You do have the mobo Manual, don't you? If you do, read up in the BIOS section. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted April 15, 2004 Report Share Posted April 15, 2004 You didn't say what brand of HDD the 40Gb one is. If it is a Western Digital, then be aware that if you have it on IDE cable as the sole drive on that cable then the JUMPER PIN MUST BE REMOVED. Some other brands may also have this characteristic so you would be advised to check. On W Ds the jumper pin is only used when you have 2 Drives on the cable, either 2 HDDs or cdroms or a combination of both to determine which will be master or slave. It is usually unimportant which is master or slave except that on the Primary IDE cable, ideally the HDD that you plan will have your windows OSon, should be Master to avoid Windows problems. Linux couldn't care less whether the HDDS are master or slave. Cheers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Technonoid Posted April 15, 2004 Report Share Posted April 15, 2004 Another option might be to buy a Promise IDE controller card. It has its own bios and will also improve performace on the new drive. Tech Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neilinoz Posted April 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 16, 2004 Some replies are due: Arthur, King of the Britons: I'm not a Linux Fundamentalist so using DOS isn't really a problem for me. The problem is that I have no DOS disks around! And you will be able to tell the limit of my geekiness by the following comment: "You mean that DOS isn't just a Microsoft product?". Well folks, I learned something today.... Saraceni: It is at the "detect Hard drives" section of the Bios setup that I have the problem - it just doesn't recognise it. Australian Toilet: Yes it is a WD! I'll try it again, but I'm fairly certain that I've already attempted your suggestion. Nothing like trying again... Hemmerology: "Well I've learned something else today folks..." I'll look into it! By the way... when my Maxtor 4gb has been selected master and the WD 40gb as slave (with the jumper pin in AJ), the autodetect mechanism in bios finds the 4gb okay, but stops when it comes to "Primary slave". And I mean stop. The whole thing just freezes up. I have to press reset to get the PC going again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ixthusdan Posted April 16, 2004 Report Share Posted April 16, 2004 Perhaps you have said this elsewhere, but what is the model # of the hard drive? A 1998 mb can have ide issues with some current hard drives. Changing the bios in some cases can correct this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted April 17, 2004 Report Share Posted April 17, 2004 Hey there what gives with the "Australian Toilet" bit ??? I'll have you know I resemble that remark. :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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