40GB: Lucky Star 6VABX2 04/20/1999-692-596-W977-2A6LGL1AC-03

[walid]

Dear Sirs ...
i have a severe problem as my computer is the thing that makes me earn money,
i have sold my small harddisk and bought a new 40 MB harddisk, but my mother board can't detect the harddisk, i have the following configuration:

General Information:
1- Brand: Lucky Star
2- Model: 6VABX2 version: 2.0
3- CPU Type : Slot1
4- Simms: 3
5- Dimms:0
6- Rimms:0
7- ISA:2
8- PCI:5
9- AGP:1
10-Case: ATX
11-BIOS: 2M


BIOS:
1- award modular bios
2- v4.51PG 1984-99 .... energy star ally
3- #LGA3-00
4- Serial Number: 1763257821 , year 1998 , PCI PNP 686
5- Bios Id: 04/20/1999-692-596-W977-2A6LGL1AC-03
6- Chipset Name: Via Apollo Pro Plus (692/596) Chipset
7- Manufacturer (Hardware Vendor): Lucky Star

Motherboard:
VIA
VT82C693 (north bridge controller chip (492-pin BGA) )
9942CE
12K0N7100

---------------------------------------
After Running the Bios upgrade Utility ==> message displays "The file size doesn't match"

I have found the appropriate bios upgrade which is file(6vabx2d8.bin 256 KB) and the bios utility (awdflash.exe),
during running the utility, and after supplying the name of the new bios file (128 KB), and after saving the old bios, the utility calculates the checksum (E295H) and displays the bios type (Winbord 29EE011 /5V) then a message displays "The file size doesn't match".

please note that i have setup the file "lga3-0-3.bin" (128 K) but this will not solve the problem of the harddisk as it is an old bios 1999

please help me to find and upgrade the bios so that the board can detect the harddisk.

please tell me what am i gonna do ?

Thanks in advance for your help

[NickS]

Hi Walid and welcome to Wims. This post would be better in "My Hard Disk isn't recognised", so I expect it will be moved there Real Soon Now.

As you have found, 256 Kbytes will not go into a 128Kbyte ROM. I will patch the last 128Kbyte BIOS listed for Lucky Star 6VABX2 at Lucky Star beta BIOS siteand email it to you to try.

As usual, remember:
- You flash at your own risk.
- You will need to uninstall any disk overlay software.
- You may need to run your disk manufacturer's utility to restore the reported disk size or to limit the disk transfer rate to UDMA33.

[NickS]

I emailed you the patched BIOS and came back to find you had double posted. I've deleted the duplicate and moved this to a more suitable forum where the title violates the posting rules.......

Walid, please be more patient. We don't get paid for this. I know it is your livelihood, but we have other jobs; and please come back and tell us whether it worked OK.

[walid]

i really don't know how to thank you for the
rest of my life, coz because of your patience and
helpfulness i could really succeed in detecting the
hard drive, i wish i don't experience any other side
effects for that bios like degradation in performance
or any other thing, thanks a lot dear.

[walid]

Ohhhhhhhhhhhh , i lost my mind, after i succeeded in installing the new bios which finally detected my new 40 GB harddisk, while installing the W2000 a message "HARD DISK ERROR" was displayed.

what can i do ?

[ajzchips]

Your HDD is probably set to a UDMA setting which your chipset can't support. Try downgrading it by one notch (i.e. from UDMA100 to UDMA66) with the appropriate UDMA utility your HDD manufacturer provides at their web.
If your chipset supports UDMA66, I strongly suggest you use an 80-wire IDE cable.

[NickS]

- You may need to run your disk manufacturer's utility to restore the reported disk size or to limit the disk transfer rate to UDMA33.

[walid]

dears ,
what do u mean by UDMA100 and UDMA66 , and how can i download the utility , and will there be any side effects ???????????

[NickS]

If you can tell us the manufacturer of the disc drive we can tell you where to find the utility.

"DMA" is transferring data by "Direct Memory Access" , i.e. the drive transfers data directly to or from the memory without using CPU power., as opposed to "PIO" (Programmed I/O) mode where the CPU reads the data from the HDD controller and then writes it to memory or vice versa.

A number of "Ultra DMA" modes have been specified which define the protocol for higher rates of DMA transfer. If I remember correctly, UDMA Mode 2 is also known as UDMA33, and that is supported by most motherboards which support UDMA. New drives support higher rates such as UDMA66 (also known as ATA-66) and UDMA100. Your operating system or your BIOS may detect these higher rates and try to use them, but if the motherboard cannot support them the system will hang with disc errors.

For example, My IBM 60GXP 40Gb hard disk supports UDMA100. To get it to work on my PC-Chips M577 or Vision Top VT586TX I had to download the IBM Disk Feature utility fomr the IBM support website and use this to set the maximum transfer rate to UDMA33.

So if you can tell us what your drive is, we can probably tell you where to find the utility.

[walid]

it is western digital, pls tell me how to use the dma utility.
thanks a lot

[Rainbow]

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp
Ultra ATA Manager. You can download full Data Lifeguard v2.8 - it will create a bootable floppy which includes Ultra ATA Manager and also other tools.