First of all: thank you for this excellent forum, and... thank you in advance for your help.
Here's my problem. My PC has a FIC VB-601 mainboard, similar to curacao's one. The board's version is 1.3 (...this is what is written on a board's corner, near to ISA2 slot, as on FIC site's FAQ). During POST I can see:
Bios: Award Modular Bios v4.60PGMA
Version: 1.15ME11 ("1.15ME11s" is also written on a label, near flash chip);
07/03/1998-i440BX-2A69KF09C-00
...so, it's an Intel chipset-based board.
The I/O chip is a Winbond 977TF-AW.
My PC is very old, as you can see
... but it always did what I asked for, and it still works fine. In other words, I would like to keep it running; but now I need to install a 40GB hard drive, and the bios doesn't recognize it.
Reading this forum, I have understood that:
- many people had my same problem on the same mobo, and fixed it by upgrading the BIOS;
- MIxxx bios family is for 1.4 boards;
- MExxx bios family is for 1.3 boards;
- MCxxx bios family is for 1.1 boards;
... but on FIC's site I found a BIOS file (mi413) which seems to be released for both versions (1.3 & 1.4)... so I'm no more sure to be on the right way
Anyway, I tried to upgrade the BIOS, using:
- me4118;
- mi413;
- mi415 (...yes, it's wrong... but I tried it also).
None of this BIOS worked on my board. The problem is always the same: the board comes up, but no IDE drive is seen (...yes, also a small -540MB- boot drive, nor CDROM drive). Even entering setup, and launching an IDE drives scan, no drive can be detected. I also tried to connect just one drive (a 20GB drive, master on first IDE... it's my usual boot drive, and with the original BIOS it works perfectly); but nothing changed. No drive detected.
The "good new" is that, everytime, the downgrade to the original BIOS (I saved it, before first upgrade...) was succesful; in other words, turning back to the original BIOS... the drives are back too.
...Do you have any idea...?
Again, thank you in advance for your help
Regards
