80GB: Gigabyte GA-686DX

GermanAlex · Mon Jul 27, 2009 2:22 am

Hi there,

I'm asking for a 128GB Hack for my Dual Pentium Pro motherboard.
Windows Setup can see the harddisk (BIOS setting: NONE) but the bios can't boot from the 80GB Western Digital HDD. So I need the 128GB hack

Here is the rom file:

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Gigabyte Support Page for 686DX:

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Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-686DX Rev 1a
BIOS Date: 06/29/1998
BIOS Type: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG
BIOS ID: 06/29/1998-i440FX-8669-2A69HG0BC-00
BIOS Eval: Intel 440FX BIOS for Dual Pentium(R) Pro Processor V.1.31
Chipset: Intel 440FX

thank you

Mon Jul 27, 2009 1:26 pm

Set the 32GB clip jumper on the HDD. Windows will still see the whole capacity and the BIOS is able to detect the drive as 32GB and boot from it. Only one drawback: The boot partition has to be in the BIOS-known area (e.g. 32GB) which shouldn't be a real-world problem.

read WDs FAQ entry about jumper settings here.

GermanAlex · Mon Jul 27, 2009 2:22 pm

Okay, thank you! I will test it right now

Just for knowledge: it is still possible to hack the bios?

greetings from Bavaria, Germany

GermanAlex · Mon Jul 27, 2009 5:38 pm

hey there

The 32GB jumper works correctly, but i can't use the other 48GB behind the 32GB

So, can you patch the bios for me? thanks

Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:19 pm

You can use the rest of the harddisk once windows is loaded. Make sure that you have at least SP2 installed (for XP). Now use the inbuild Windows partition manager or even better: get a free partition editor/manager on cd/usb to do the work: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

greetings from bavaria, too :) from ingolstadt to be precise..at least for now. i'll be somewhere else from next week on.

GermanAlex · Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:22 pm

That was the problem
I've installed Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PCs an the disk management wasn't there (i forgot to tick the option in the setup)

I'll try again now

greetings from Hahnbach (small village near Amberg and Nürnberg)

Mon Jul 27, 2009 8:25 pm

party on, dude :)

you can still use gparted to partition and format the rest of the drive. it's just like some well-known commercial partition tool available for PCs, just for free :)

GermanAlex · Mon Jul 27, 2009 11:52 pm

I've tested it now:

with the 32GB jumper, I can't use the other 48GB

They aren't shown in the Windows management console or in other partition programs

So I hope anybody will patch the bits in my bios

Tue Jul 28, 2009 4:04 pm

did you install at least SP2 before testing? did you try the gparted live-cd/usb? did you check the LBA size of the drive before and after installing the jumper? you can still delete the partition table with gparted which should reveal the true size of the drive, create a small boot partition for XP (2-4GB), install XP (SP2 and all drivers) and create a data partition with XP or gparted.

the inbuild partition manager can be kinda picky about the drive size. example: take a 1GB usb stick and use dd to write a debian hd-boot image to the drive. Windows will think the drive is ~230MB even when examined with the partition manager. once you delete the partition, the stick is sized 1GB again.

not that nice... but still: XP is capable of 48bit LBA and it ignores the BIOS CHS values.

GermanAlex · Tue Jul 28, 2009 5:30 pm

This XP has already Service Pack 3 integrated, and when the jumper is set to 32GB, the other 48GB are lost in space

I've teste some linux versions, and they also see only the 32GB.

Deleting, formating, partitioning - nothing helps

so wheres the problem of simply patching the bios file, I only want to use my old Dual Socket 8 Pentium Pro workstation

Wed Jul 29, 2009 6:51 pm

first of all: there's no problem with patching a bios. it's just that i don't have the patcher and i won't do any disassembly/fixing if there are easier ways.

a few more hints: did you set the drive to LBA in the bios? did you boot a recent linux? did you check dmesg for the drive parameters? did you use cfdisk/gparted to overwrite the mbr/start with a zero mbr?

honestly i once used a 160GB hdd (clipped to 32GB ofcourse) on an intel 430fx with a cyrix 6x86 and a nice linux kernel without problems. it can't be that hard.

GermanAlex · Fri Jul 31, 2009 12:36 am

Linux on the 80GB HDD is no problem (i'm running debian atm on it)

But the Windows XP Setup sees only the 32GB

When I make partitions (32GB + 48GB) with gparted, linux has no problems, but the windows setup says i must format the harddisc because there are no partitions on it

Fri Jul 31, 2009 8:46 am

Windows XP SETUP (!) uses BIOS routines to detemine the size of the drive. once XP is installed you can use rest of the drive.
Windows XP (Vista and W2k, too) use a new partition table, so an old DOS partition table will be useless. make sure you create a Windows compatible partition table with gparted or any other partitioning tool.

GermanAlex · Fri Jul 31, 2009 1:19 pm

Anyway, a installed Windows XP also sees only the 32GB

So, who in the forums can patch BIOSes

Fri Jul 31, 2009 3:33 pm

It sounds strange that the full capacity is not available within Windows but within Linux, it should be seen as non-partitioned area.
AFAIR there were some boards with Award 4.51PG having this problem but not many.
I'll dig out my patcher and have a look at the Bios on the weekend.