120GB: 51-0625-001121-00111111-071595-i430TX

BIOS update, EIDE card, or overlay software? (FAQ Hard disk recognition)
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guest22
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BIOS needed for FIC PT-2011. I found 626ga13 from manufacturers website and it doesn't have any documentation as to what the upgraded BIOS can do, this BIOS is dated 06/25/97. Is there a more recent BIOS for this mobo on www.wimsbios.com?
Denniss
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FIC even has a 626GA14
ftp://ftp.fic.com.tw/motherboard/bios/s ... -2011/Ami/

But only flash if you have a GA type Bios - other types ar GC and maybe another version .

I don't think your Bios support 120GB - maybe 32GB and that's it .

It might be needed to crossflash to Award Bios if we're able to patch an Award version .
guest22
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I flashed the AMI BIOS for mobo PT-2011 with upgraded BIOS 626ga14 from manufacturer's website. However, I noticed information being displayed incorrectly.

During POST, system displays ingormation for the Maxtor DiamondMax Plus9 120GB ATA/133 hard drive as follows:
cyl: 16383; head: 16; sector: 63; size: 8064MB.

Here's the kicker, I checked the properties for C:\ drive thru Windows Explorer in Win98SE. It showed 122GB just like on my other computer running Win98SE as well which happens to have an Award BIOS that correctly displays the Maxtor drive's true size, 121994MB during POST). I also used Maxtor's MaxBlast3 utility program and it displayed 122GB.

Another glitch during POST that I noticed was the CPU Speed being displayed at 333Mhz (I'm using a Pentium MMX 233Mhz). I used shareware WCPUID to get the true CPU speed, it was 233Mhz.

Do you think 626ga14 is a good version of the current BIOS?

Should I forget about incorrect info during POST?

Will this upgraded BIOS cause any kind of problems in the future?

Thanks for your help.
NickS
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Are your drive type and mode set auto/auto ?
Tested patched BIOSes. Untested patched BIOSes.
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Ritchie
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I think you can rely on the BIOS detection of 8GB as being a BIOS limitation, or bug, which limits the drive's detectable size to 8GB, which, I understand, makes it non-patchable.

I didn't think Windows 98 would allow the full capacity of the drive to be used with an 8GB BIOS limitation. Was the drive partitioned and formatted under another machine (that did detect the full size in the BIOS) and then transferred to this machine? That may explain the situation.

I am not sure about the CPU speed problem.
guest22
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NickS;
yeah, they are both set to auto....

Ritchie,
yes, the drive was formatted and transfered to this machine. The drive works fine on another machine which its Award bios was upgraded to recognize large size HD.
Can I test the drive's capacity in any way to really get the its full size? I'm only using 28GB out of 120GB.
Ritchie
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In an earlier post you indicated the BIOS was detecting 8GB. Now you mention 28GB. Is this the BIOS as well, on the same machine - have you applied a BIOS update that achieves this?

If the BIOS now reports 28GB - you may be up against the next bug - 32GB.
If this is the formatted size - maybe you are up against a O/S limitation such as a file system limit. If you are running Windows 98 I don't think it will let you use the full 120GB, even if your BIOS is now reporting 120GB detection.
guest22
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Sorry for any confusion...

During POST, the Maxtor 120GB HD is listed as 8GB.... In Win98, I have access to the HD's full 28GB worth of data.

The question again, how do I know if I really have access to the entire 120GB? It might be ok for 32GB and 64GB but 120GB?

Yeah, this drive was formatted and partioned on a different machine.
NickS
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I would guess that your drive has "Dynamic Disk Overlay" software installed by the Maxtor setup utility. This replaces the BIOS's disk handling routines to allow you to access the full capacity of the drive. What happens is that the BIOS is told that the drive is a size it can cope with, but at boot time the first thing loaded is the overlay which then reads the true size of the disk. This is fine for most uses when you are using Win98, although some software which tries to use direct disk I/O may fall over. You should not use DDOs with the latest OSes such as XP or Linux.
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