40GB: 03/12/99-i430VX-2A59GM49C-00

[Pistol]

Hi, I'm trying to fit a 40GB hard drive to my aging PC setup, and have run up against the 32GB capacity limit. My mainboard is an MSI MS-5129 v1.2, and I'm trying to fit a Maxtor Diamondmax drive. BIOS Agent info follows:

Program: Unicore BIOS Wizard Version 3.2
Program: eSupport.com BIOS Detect v1.1 June 4, 2003
BIOS Date: 03/12/99
BIOS Type: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
BIOS ID: 03/12/99-i430VX-2A59GM49C-00
OEM Sign-On: (Rel 1.1A) BIOS Upgrade Provided by Unicore Software
Chipset: Intel Triton 430VX rev 2
Superio: Winbond 877F (use 87h) rev 0 found at port 3F0h
OS: Microsoft Windows 98 SE Version: 4.10.2222 A
CPU Type: AMD-K6
CPU Speed: 333 Mhz
CPU Max: 266 Mhz
BIOS ROM In Socket: Yes
BIOS ROM Size: 128K
Memory Installed: 128 MB
Memory Maximum: 128 MB

The BIOS will autodetect the drive if the Capacity Limitation Jumper is set, but of course then I'll lose 8GB of storage space

The most recent BIOS update from MSI can be found here, but as you can see it's older than the Unicore BIOS update presently installed. Unicore want to charge me $24.95 for a BIOS update - if someone could sort me out with a patch instead, that would make my day!

I could supply a backup of the BIOS that's in my system now if neccessary, couldn't I (start a flash, back it up, then quit without flashing)?

Thanks for any assistance!

[NickS]

Taking a look ..., hmm, the latest BIOS at the URL provided says:
06/10/97-i430VX-2A59GM49C-00
WI7C 040197.
Would you like to email me your BIOS ?

[Pistol]

Will do! Thanks for replying! I'll try to sort it tonight.

Edit: Sent!

[Pistol]

NickS, your patched BIOS worked a treat! The drive auto-detected at the correct capacity, and formatted no trouble. Thanks for saving me a lot of frustration!

[Side note for info: if anyone is installing a Maxtor hard drive on a similar old system, and finds Maxblast 3 crashes, contact Maxtor. They sent me Maxblast 1.27s which worked fine.]

[NickS]

Pistol, were you using MaxBlast to get around the 32GB limit or, if not, what ?

[Pistol]

Nick,

I wasn't using Maxblast to get around the 32gb limit. When I originally tried to fit the drive, it was recognised when the 32gb capacity limitation jumper was set. I did try to run Maxblast then, but it didn't work - crashed. I think the latest version of the software is incompatible with my machine, or something. I suppose I could have formatted the drive as 32gb without using Maxblast at all, but I didn't think of that at the time , and TBH I really wanted to get the 40gb I'd paid for! By the time I got another version of Maxblast and had the time to try the drive again, you'd already sent me the patched BIOS so I never needed to try and use the dynamic disk overlay function of Maxblast. I just used it to copy my old system drive over to the new one.

I wouldn't have really wanted to use DDO software anyhow, as the whole point of the 40gb disk was that I could carry it over to my next PC (when I can afford one!) - using DDO would screw that right up!

Thanks again!

[NickS]

Maxblast. I just used it to copy my old system drive over to the new one.

Ah, OK. Thanks for the feedback.

General note: as this is a Unicore BIOS, not one which is available for free download from MSI, I don't think I can put the patched version up for free download.