120GB: Azza PT-5IT

BIOS update, EIDE card, or overlay software? (FAQ Hard disk recognition)
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ToonPal
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My Azza PT-5IT motherboard seems to be unable to work with hard drives larger than 32 GB on its own. I have a Maxtor 120GB hard drive that causes the BIOS to freeze when trying to auto-detect it. The drive doesn't cause a freeze problem with the 32GB cap jumper set, but then I only have 32 GB of usable capacity unless I use a software overlay.

The latest BIOS for this board is dated 7/17/1998 which never changed in the remainder of Azza's life. I still have a copy of this BIOS in my archives along with the old BIOS my board used to have and the necessary flash utility.

I visited wims.rainbow-software.org and learned that there are people lending their skill to patch old BIOSes allowing them to natively support hard drives as high as 128 GB. I don't see my motherboard in the list of patched systems there. Can anyone in this forum help me?

EDIT: I just remembered another problem I have. The system recognizes UDMA mode 6. But. in the past, whenever a mode beyond 2 was detected on a newer drive, Windows wouldn't allow DMA mode to be used. Is there a way to fix that?
cp
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which operating system are you using? to get around the udma detection (the drive is capable of udma 6 but the chipset isn't) you can set udma modes in the bios from auto to udma2. can you please post which chipset is used on the board? intel tx?
ToonPal
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The operating system is Windows 98. This motherboard uses the Intel i430TX chipset. I am aware of many systems that allow you to set a maximum UDMA mode in the BIOS, but this isn't one of them. BIOS setup allows the selection of PIO modes, but for UDMA, the only available options are Auto and Disabled. BIOS upgrades traditionally were the only way that these systems could natively provide UDMA support for hard drives that supported UDMA modes that the motherboard chipset did not. Unfortunately, Azza never fixed this issue with this particular board.

I understand that I can use Multi-word DMA mode if I disable UDMA, but I'd prefer to use UDMA. I am also aware of ways to change an internal setting in hard drives to get them to report a lower UDMA mode.

In any case, the main issue I want to address with this topic is that of higher drive capacity support. A fix for the UDMA issue would be nice, but I'm not begging for it.
edwin
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if I can find the time I'll try and make a patched version but it's been extremely busy...
edwin/evasive

Do not assume anything

System error, strike any user to continue...
KachiWachi
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IIRC, an i430TX does not understand anything more than ATA-33 (82371AB (PIIX4)).

Try limiting the HDD using the manufacturer's disk.
edwin
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there's a bios routine that can limit the udma modes just as there is one that can read harddisks up to 128GB. ToonPal, you've got mail.
edwin/evasive

Do not assume anything

System error, strike any user to continue...
ToonPal
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Thank you very much!

I've done a little testing now and thought I'd share my experience so far.

First of all, it found a 122GB UDMA 2 hard drive. Very good. I boot up Windows 98 and get a look at a hard disk formatted and stuffed from use on a newer system. Corruption galore. Very bad. Putting the drive back in the newer system reveals no corruption. Very good. I'm guessing the older system doesn't like the way the partition table is written to the drive.

EDIT: What the-... Ooookayyyy... Why did disconnecting the PT-5IT's primary 1GB hard drive make the 120GB drive's corruption go away? Oh, and in case Cp and KachiWachi were wondering; yes, I patched Windows 98 for drives this big beforehand.

EDIT: 10/10/2003? This patched PT-5IT BIOS has been around this long? Gosh, I wonder how many other patched BIOSes are placed outside the reach of Google!

EDIT: Ugh... I can't boot it! Re-writing the partition table with Norton Disk Doctor failed. SYS failed. FDISK failed. I guess I'll have to start the drive over from scratch for a good test. How inconvenient. Oh, well. Given how long the BIOS has been around, it's probably been pretty well tested already. I probably don't need to show off any success here. If someone knows that's not the case, though, I'll go ahead and talk about how it worked out when I'm finished.
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