80GB: Jetway 7BXAN_2 A01

[trevorduddle]

Hi,

I have looked on the Jetway site and cannot see if there is an upgrade to the 4.51PG BIOS that will enable support of an 80GB disk.

My earlier posting said I have used an overlay that shows the HDD in power up but not under windows.

Maybe a BIOS upgrade would be better.

TYIA

Trevor

[ajzchips]

But have you tried their latest, though?

[trevorduddle]

Thanks for the reply but it is a little to cryptic for me

What exactly do you mean?

Cheers

Trevor

[ajzchips]

You know your mobo manufacturer; you seem to know your motherboard model (7BXA.....); you've been to their site...

I just meant: have you actually tried to flash the latest update you've found, regardless or not of whether there's explicit mention that it supports very large HDDs?

[trevorduddle]

Nope. I'm new to this. Faced with the dire warnings of doom and destruction posted on the site. I thought I would not risk it until I had some feedback about whether it had large disk support.

No point in risking armageddon for no benefit.

Thanks for replying

Trevor

[ajzchips]

Just checked...

In the very BEST of cases, you'll get it to recognize upto 64GB. But we can patch this for you ourselves, to get upto 128GB support.

[trevorduddle]

Hi,

Sounds great. Thanks for checking for me. You wrote

"But we can patch this for you ourselves, to get upto 128GB support"

I am completely new to this sort of thing how does it work from here?

Thanks

Trevor

[NickS]

Well, one of the below:
- you post a link to where we can find the BIOS you would like patched, or
- you zip and email the BIOS you want patched to the person who offered to patch it, or,
- someone takes pity on you and finds the BIOS, patches it and emails it to you without you lifting a finger.

Then you have to actually flash it.

Maybe we patchers should have a list of who's doing what for whom....

[trevorduddle]

Thanks Nick

Are you guys helping out 'cos you just love it?

I found this site yesterday when I had the problem. I looked at the Award site for BIOS upgrades but I did not actually see anything that said large HDD support.

As a rookie I am completely at a loss particularly when the Award site is written in some strange dialect of English. Even if I understood what I was doing I would find it hard to follow.

Any idea where I might find a suitable BIOS AND find out if it works for big HDD's. The previous message made it sound as if it is out there somewhere - I hope.

Thanks again. Appreciate your time

Trevor

[NickS]

Thanks Nick

Are you guys helping out 'cos you just love it?

I guess so, I expect we all have some sort of "guru" complex. I got sucked in because I had some spare time at work and had struggled in the past to find out how to support a bigger disc on my PC-Chips M577.[/quote]

Any idea where I might find a suitable BIOS AND find out if it works for big HDD's. The previous message made it sound as if it is out there somewhere - I hope.

Award is not really the site to look at, as the manufacturers customsie the BIOS to suit themselves. There are known bugs in the 4.50 and 4.51 bioses relating to the detection and reporting of drives over 32 Gb. Some manufacturers fixed them, some didn't bother as they were no longer interested in supporting these older boards.
Finding out whether a BIOS supports big drives is a question of:
A. Looking at the release note for the BIOS (which seldom exists),
B. flashing it and seeing whether it does, or,
C. looking at the code, which can be in more than one place and is packed into the BIOS in a compressed format. Rainbow has developed a utility which he has released to a few people which does this check and patches the code if it does not already support it. In the time it has taken to write this, I could have patched your BIOS if you had been able to give me a link to it

[trevorduddle]

Thanks again Nick.

I shall begin my search. However, when you say about getting a BIOS but that Award is not the place to look, I am at a loss.

I understand that BIOS is just code but I presume that any old code wil not do or else there would be only one BIOS out there.

If I search the web looking for "alternative BIOS for 4.51 PG" is that likely to be OK or am I looking for "alternatives for the motherboard/chipset"

Cheers Nick

Your help is much appreciated. Please excuse me if the questions seem a bit stupid. I am on a steep learning curve Trevor

[NickS]

A quick overview. As far as I know, Award provides code to the motherboard manufacturers as a set of modules which will support different devices. For a particular board, the manufaturer will link together all the bits they need to support a particular design and then compile them into the BIOS image. You may have a VIA chipset, a Winbond I/O chip, etc. , or you may have something completely diferent e.g. Ali chipset, UMC I/O, etc. If another manufacturer happens to choose the same combination then their BIOS might work in the first manufacturer's board.

Once a manufacturer stops selling a board, they don't generally update the BIOS any more. Award don't know the details of every manufacturer's board, so they can't provide specific BIOSes.

If you're happy with your BIOS apart from HDD support, your best bet is to check out the main Wim's BIOS site "utilities" link and download a copy of "AWDFLASH.EXE" or "Uniflash.exe". Create a bootable diskette (see http://www.bootdisks.com if you can't because you have Windows ME) and copy awdflash.exe or uniflash.exe to the diskette. You may find it simpler to delete the autoexec.bat and config.sys. Use "awdflash /h" or "uniflash /h" to find the correct command syntax to save your existing BIOS to a file on diskette. Zip and email me the file and I'll patch it.

Now I've got to do some work, so see you later.

[NickS]

Update: I checked out the Jetway website and they offer two BIOSes for the J7BXAN_2/J7BXAS_2 motherboards. They both *have* large disc support already. BXAS2D1,BIN does not have the EPA logo, BXAS2D01 does. Both are dated 08/12/1999.

Tech note: As the original.tmp and awardext.components are slightly differebt in size, I will investigate to see if I can find any clues to version no.

[trevorduddle]

Thanks Nick,

I have the BIOS you sent, much appreciated.

I have done nothing with it yet since I was investigating all the disaster recovery pages on WimBios (just in case).

I shall wait a little while to see what your investigations reveal.

I am searching the Jetway site again and I still can't find the files you mention. Mind you I would never have looked for BXAS2D1 How would I have known that related to mine? lol

Thanks again

Trevor

[NickS]

I am searching the Jetway site again and I still can't find the files you mention. Mind you I would never have looked for BXAS2D1 How would I have known that related to mine?

Never underestimate the sheer persistenceof a veteran. ACtually it's simple:
Go to the main site
select English
select "download area"
select "old board"
look for "7BXAN" and you find it with 7BXAS (at a guess, the same board with on-board sound ?)
click on this and a little pop-up window appears - I'll won't spoil the fun by syaing what it says, but it's worth looking at.