40GB - MS-5169 version 3.7

guruman · Sun Feb 15, 2004 6:15 pm

I've read on this forum that there's a 3.8 beta BIOS around that fixes large hard drive support for this BIOS - unfortunately, Microstar tech support seems to be ignoring my e-mails.

Can anyone point me towards a possible alternate location for obtaining this BIOS?

Sun Feb 15, 2004 9:37 pm

Give me your mail (per PM) and I'll send you the 3.83 Beta

Mon Feb 16, 2004 12:09 am

can you send a copy to me as well? I might put it online at elhvb.com

guruman · Mon Feb 16, 2004 12:37 am

Thank you!

Mon Feb 16, 2004 10:03 am

Mails on their way !

Mon Feb 16, 2004 10:07 pm

version 3.83 now online here:
http://www.elhvb.com/mboards/msi/bios/MS-5169.rar

you need winrar to unpack it:
http://www.rarlabs.com/download.htm

guruman · Tue Feb 17, 2004 5:33 am

D'oh!

Unfortunately the 40 GB drive still isn't being recognized even with the 3.8b3 BIOS installed.

The drive is a Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 8, incidentally.

guruman · Tue Feb 17, 2004 6:11 am

Also, an older Fujitsu 10GB drive also was unusable.

It seems that the bugs fixed by 3.8b3 are far from completely quashed

Tue Feb 17, 2004 11:54 am

AMI BIOS of 24/11/2000 with no support for HDD >40GB ? Sad. Time for an add-in card.

Tue Feb 17, 2004 6:39 pm

I have reports of working 80Gb HDD with this Bios so either you have done somethign wrong or a compatibility problem with your HDD .
Please Clear CMOS and then load Optimal/Performance Settings in Bios .

Try IDE HDD Autodetect in Bios
If this does not work enter HDD parameters manually

Tue Feb 17, 2004 11:21 pm

and the unthinkable: try another cable. yes, they do go bad once and a while. without any visible damage.

guruman · Tue Feb 17, 2004 11:42 pm

I haven't tried wiping the CMOS totally, I can indeed give that a whirl and see what happens. I will also try the 'optimal parameters' menu option as well.

Manually entering the parameters didn't work - the BIOS still seems to query every IDE device during the initial POST and displays info about them - i.e. "FUJITSU blah blah blah, S.M.A.R.T. capable and status OK" - at this point the boot times out for 30-40 seconds and an error is reported (after which booting can continue, minus the drive of course).

I know the drive works as I plugged it into my primary PC in order to actually get the parameters. The Fujitsu drive I tried came out of my primary PC just for a test.

Tried a new cable already - no dice.

What I might also test is seeing if the drive works on the other channel - it just dawned on me that whatever caused the original drive to die may have also damaged that channel (smacks self in forehead)...

Wed Feb 18, 2004 12:52 am

Please post the exact error message !!

Make sure your drive(s) don't require a "single" setting instead of "master"

What's the model of your HDDs ?

guruman · Wed Feb 18, 2004 3:18 am

The drive is being detected and is working now!

The secondary channel apparantly is blown, as the drive had no detection problems as soon as I connected it to the primary channel. This explains why the 10GB drive I tried also wouldn't work when I connected it up - again, it was on the secondary channel.

Thanks for providing the BIOS!

Ritchie · Wed Feb 18, 2004 3:30 am

Good to hear you got it working.

Just monitor that system carefully. I always assume that if I can identify a fault on a component, that component may have other faults which I do not know about, and those other faults may or may not be causing a problem (depending what the faults are and what you use the system for).

Any problems you have with software that you are unable to resolve may be due to other problems with that main board.