DFI P2XBL Rev DA+

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

Hi people!

I've used this motherboard during 10 years whitout problem. There have been 2 drives plugged during years: 7GB drive and 80 GB drive, booting from the 7GB drive because the 80GB drive has never been recognised by this motherboard. Now, the 7GB drive is crashed so I need the motherboard recognise the 80GB drive to boot from there.

I write the information:


BIOS Type: Award
BIOS Date: September 7th 1999
BIOS ID: 09/07/1999-i440BX-ED-2A69KD4FC-00-None
BIOS OEM: 4.51 PG
Chipset: Intel 440BX/ZX rev 3
SuperIO: Winbond 977EF rev 4 at port 03F0
Manufacturer: Unknown
Motherboard: 440BX
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CASAE (system summary) Good Bad Download
BIOS
Award Bad Download


Disk Drives
ST380011A Good
ST38421A Good
Display adapters
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Model 64/Model 64 Pro (Microsoft Corporation) Bad Download
DVD/CD-ROM drives
HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8520B Good
SAMSUNG DVD-ROM SD-606 Good
Human Interface Devices
Dispositivo de interfaz humana USB Good
IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers
Controladora IDE principal de bus PCI Intel(R) 82371AB/EB Good
Imaging device
Hewlett-Packard ScanJet 4100C Good Download
Keyboards
Teclado PS/2 extendido para PC/AT (101/102 teclas) Good
Mice and other pointing devices
Mouse compatible con HID Good
Monitors
Samsung SAMTRON 55E(Plus) Good Download
Network adapters
Realtek RTL8139/810x Family Fast Ethernet NIC Good Download
Ports
Puerto de comunicaciones (COM1) Good
Puerto de impresora ECP (LPT1) Good
Printers
HP DeskJet 720C Good Download
Sound, video and game controllers
Creative SB Live! Valor (WDM) Bad Download
Puerto de juegos de Creative SB Live! Bad Download
Universal Serial Bus controllers
Concentrador USB genérico Good
Controladora de host universal de PCI a USB Intel(R) 82371AB/EB Good
Disconnected Devices
Unknown device Good
DSC de Sony Bad Download
Dispositivo de almacenamiento masivo USB Good
Dispositivo de almacenamiento masivo USB Bad Download
Dispositivo de interfaz humana USB Good
Dispositivo desconocido Good
Kingston DataTraveler 2.0 USB Device Good
Kingston DataTraveler2.0 USB Device Good
Monitor Plug and Play Good
Sony Sony DSC USB Device Good
U20 Mobile Disk Good
takeMS MEM-Drive USB Device Good


Can you give me the appropiated files to flash the bios in order it to recognise the 80GB drive?

Thanks in advance.

I forgot to tell you that the ST380011A drive is the drive I want the motherboard to recognize (80GB) and the ST38421A drive is the crashed drive (7GB)

Regards.

[edwin]

I think the latest bios will support that disk:
http://www.dfi.com.tw/portal/CM/cmprodu ... e&action=1

however, when I am home i will check and make a patched one if needed...

Thanks Edwin!

I've seen now that the DFI drivers need a Windows installation to update the bios. At the moment, it's quite difficult for me because I don't have any old drive that the bios can recognize.

Anyway, I will try it in some way.

Regards.

[edwin]

you can use the oldfashioned DOS flash method from a bootable floppy disk. information on how to do that is available in the Bios FAQ section of the site.

Thanks edwin!

I will do these tests and I will tell you about the results.

Regards.

you can use the oldfashioned DOS flash method from a bootable floppy disk. information on how to do that is available in the Bios FAQ section of the site.

yes, you're right, I was wrong with the file to download.


But one question: my revision is DA+. So what BIOS do I have to download? The D revision or the A revision? Moreover, in the D revision and in the A revision there are more than one files. So which one do I have to download?

Thanks for your help.

[cp]

take a look at this picture.

jumper the 80GB hdd to 32GB clipped. the bios won't crash anymore recognizing the drive. once your OS (Windows XP SP1 and up will work fine, every recent Linux) is booted you'll have access to the full 80GB again.

Hi cp!

Thanks for your reply!

I've tried what you commented and these are my results:

The first configuration I've tried:
primary master: CDRW
primary slave: DVD drive
secondary master: (none)
secondary slave: 80GB drive in the 32GB limit jumper
With this configuration the BIOS has recognized my 80GB drive, and when I've realized I've pluged it in slave, I've switched off the pc and configured in the next way:

primary master: CDRW
primary slave: DVD drive
secondary master: 80GB drive in the 32GB limit jumper
secondary slave: (none)
With this configuration the BIOS gets halted showing "Pentium III 550 MHZ. Processor serial No disabled", but I don't see any more message nor the typical "looking in the primary master...blablabla" . In the down area of the screen I can also read the typical message "Press del to enter setup", but when I press del nothing different appears in the screen!

From this point I've tried everything and with no repairing that! The changes I've tried to solve the problem:
Changing the keyboard
Plugging/Unplugging the mouse
Plugging/Unplugging the floppy

With this configuration:
primary master: CDRW
primary slave: DVD drive
secondary master: (none)
secondary slave: (none)

With this configuration:
primary master: (none)
primary slave: (none)
secondary master: CDRW
secondary slave:DVD drive


With this configuration:
primary master: (none)
primary slave: (none)
secondary master: (none)
secondary slave:(none)

With this configuration:
primary master: 80GB drive with the 32GB limit jumper
primary slave: (none)
secondary master: (none)
secondary slave:(none)

With this configuration:
primary master: (none)
primary slave: (none)
secondary master: 80GB drive with the 32GB limit jumper
secondary slave:(none)

And everything the same error and not being able to go inside the setup pressing "delete" key. it's so strange! Moreover, I've plugged all the drives to the power supply.

So what happens? Is it a BIOS bug?

Please help me.

Thanks in advance.

I have to add that the only beep I hear is the usual beep when I switch on the pc. No more beeps.

Regards.

[edwin]

verify the drive has 2 jumpers, each on the outer end
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?v ... age=Legacy

and if you are using a 80-wire data cable, use the blue connector on the board and the other end connector on your disk.

all is well plugged: the wire, the drive, the jumper with the 32 GB limit. It's rare, because the first configuration I used recognised the drive(when I plugged as slave), but since the second test plugging it as master, the bios doesn't arrive to the drives inspection- it arrives only to the "pentium 3 550MHz" message. And also with the first configuration I used the bios now stays in the "pentium 3 550MHz" message.

I think I'm not gonna do any more tests because I'm bored trying so many times

Thanks.

Regards.

I got it!

I took off the BIOS battery during some hours. Then I plugged it again, so the bios returned to its normal behaviour. The hard drive continued without being recognised by the bios, so I downloaded the Windows 98 boot disk ISO, this file from the DFI web page: http://img.lanparty.tw/Upload/BIOS/CM/PB61BX0530.ZIP and I installed the application MagicISO.

I unzipped the PB61BX0530.ZIP file, included the unzipped files inside the Windows 98 boot disk file with MagicISO and burned the result ISO with Infrarecorder.

I Rebooted the PC booting from the CD, and then it showed:

a:

so I changed to the CD:

d:

and typed:

f741

The application asked me for the binary image to copy into the bios, so I answered:

pbbzk.bin

It asked me if I want to save the current bios binary image: I anwered no

The process worked correctly, the PC rebooted automatically and it recognised the 80GB drive as master!

Wow!

I realised that even the user's manual says the motherboard revision is DA+, just in the motherboard I could read "rev. D1", so I began to find the bios version for the D revision and not for the A revision, which was confussing at first.

Thanks to you people!

[edwin]

you are welcome, good to see you got it all fixed in the end. oh and instead of just taking that bios battery out, replace it with a brand new one, i think it is already on its end.