Used this bios upgrade from Rainbow:
http://wims.rainbow-software.org/index. ... &count=100
on this bios:
12/03/1998-i440BX-ITE867-2A69KT1BC-00
With UNIFLASH v1.38. It did work, even with the note: it blocked the bios with a password.
I pulled out the mobo's battery, and erased the password. I re-entered all the data, and everything works fine, even with 40Gb HDs.
Thanks.