PCCHIPS M726 doesn't recognize 80GB HDDs

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

Hello,

I need some help. I#ve read the Postings in the forum neep help. I have an old M726

61-0330-001437-00111111-071595-ALi1621-M726_V3.4-5123

Is there any Patch for 80 GB HDDs?

Best wishes V.

[cp]

does the bios crash on recognition, does it display the wrong size or doesn't it recognize the hdd at all? if it doesn't recognize the hdd at all: check your cableing.
your bios is an AMIBIOS, no way to patch it. try this site for the latest bios update and very useful patches:

http://www.rainbow-software.org/hardware/m726tune.html

which operating system are you using? if it's windows xp sp2, windows 2k sp4 or any linux just set the drive to 32GB with the clip jumper on the drive. the OS will recognize the full capacity nonetheless.

The bios autodetect hangs. If I try to set manually the disk geometry ist says 65555 as capacity. The OS is Debian Linux

[cp]

jumper the drive to be clipped to 32GB (check the hdd manual for the correct jumper setting). boot debian and check /var/log/dmesg for the detection results. you'll see that the drive is recognized with the full capacity.

one more thing: make sure that the boot partition holding the kernel lives within the bios recognized space of 32GB (shouldn't be that hard to acomplish;))

Thank you. This works. Is there any possibility to patch the bios?

[cp]

no there isn't. i'd be grateful that there's linux that works around the bios as most of the bioses have rather annoying bugs. the m726 bios doesn't even set the southbridge's ide parameters correct. i bet that your kernel works around that, too. really, this bios is a huge mess! just stick with linux, it will ignore the bogus bios settings anyway. you could even use a 500GB PATA drive on an intel 430FX board with a Pentium 120 with linux. you would at least need windows xp or windows 2k to achieve the same...but i doubt that any windows would 'run' on such a machine.

[NickS]

cp: is there no hope of using a later BIOS?
See http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/topic3808.html

[cp]

NickS: probably not. i had an M726 a few weeks ago. it had the 1Mbit bios and the register settings were UGLY. the ALi datasheet notes that most of the registers are set to slow-mo settings. so i wanted to check if i could do something about that without using 'setpci -s x:x.x xx.b=xx' i also took a look at the 2Mbit bios to check if there were more options (or changes in the registers) available. despite the size difference the 1Mbit and the 2Mbit bios looked indentical regarding options and registers. i really don't know if they are bitwise copies but they look very much alike.
the size detection bug could go away but my guess: the next barrier is 128GB. so why bothering with a buggy bios if the os fixes it all (and even beyond) anyways.
i wonder who could actually USE the board back then..it must have been awfully slow with an OS depending on what a buggy bios suggested.