bios update needed for ms-6156

BIOS update, EIDE card, or overlay software? (FAQ Hard disk recognition)
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vincenzo7
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thank you all for taking a look at my problem.

bought a western digital 80 gig and 320 gig hard drive. neither of them are picked up in the bios. although both are detected by XP once booted and can be used as storage devices. i intend to use the 320 gig hard drive for storage but would like to be able to install a operating system and boot of the 80 gig hard drive and use it as my primary drive.

after reading up and i tried a few possible solutions...installed service pack 2 but no luck, bought a sil 680 raid ide controller card but no luck again. infact my computer doesnt even boot up when the ide controller card is inserted. the card is not faulty as it works fine in another machine. also used fdisk, western digital tools and partition magic. so the only thing remaining i can think of is a bios update.

my bios is by AMI. the manufacturer MSI supplies a update for my board which seems to fix the problem but it is by AWARD. although it states that it is version 1.6 and i currently have 2.2. i did try it but it just sits there with nothing happening. i used the msi live update tool but it says no update is available.

i was wondering if anyone had a bios update for my system. ive included details below and can provide any additional information needed. thanks.

Using MSI live update:
Mainboard Manufacturer: MSI
Mainboard Model Name: MS-6156
Mainboard BIOS Vendor: AMIBIOS
Mainboard BIOS Version: 2.20

Using BIOS Agent:
BIOS Date: 07/15/95
BIOS Type: American Megatrends
BIOS ID: 61-0209-001169-00111111-071595-440BX-1440B000
OEM Sign-On: A6156O1 V2.2B5 042899
Chipset: Intel 440BX/ZX rev 3
Superio: Winbond 977TF rev 0 found at port 3F0h
OS: WinXP SP2
CPU: Pentium III 500 Mhz MAX: 500 Mhz
BIOS ROM In Socket: No
BIOS ROM Size: 256K
Memory Installed: 256 MB
Memory Maximum: 256 MB
Memory Slot 01: 128 MB
Memory Slot 02: 128 MB

Using Everest:
Motherboard Properties
Motherboard ID: 61-0209-001169-00111111-071595-440BX$1440B000_A6156O1 V2.2B5 042899
Motherboard Name: MSI MS-6156BX
Motherboard Chipset: i440BX
Company Name: Micro-Star International

BIOS Properties
BIOS Type AMI
System BIOS Date 07/15/95
Video BIOS Date 07/05/99
BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc.
Denniss
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The controller card is probably not backwards compatible with the older PCI 2.1 standard your board has. You may use the capacity limitation jumper on your HDD to limit them to 32 GB to be able to install your OS on it. All other should be available inside XP.

Regarding your Bios: You have an OEM-Bios AFAIK for Time or Tiny computers. A MSI Retail Bios might work or not, you then have to pick a Bios that maches your model number MS-6156, your Revision number (AFAIK Rev 1.x or 2..x) and your motherboard chipset (AFAIK one with VIA and two with Intel i440ZX and i440BX).
At least the Award Bios should be able to be patched for native 128GB support.
edwin
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That is a Tiny Computers bios indeed:
http://y2k.nstl.com/asp/companyinfo_main.asp?id=293
edwin/evasive

Do not assume anything

System error, strike any user to continue...
Pete_The_Pancake
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Joined: Sun Oct 22, 2006 10:24 am

Hi Vincenzo

Actually this Mainboard latest BIOS avilable I found is 2.5

I have a 120GB connected to it here and running Gentoo Linux.

here's the link to MSI's German website you can find (quite at the bottom) the different flavors of the MS-6156 (Intel & VIA Chipsets)

http://www.msi-computer.de/support/dl_man.php

Select your mainboard and you'll see the BIOS download part. BIOS updates are in ENGLISH ;)

you'll need a dos floppy boot (starts to be hard to find nowadays)

Hope this will help you.

Cheers

Peter
edwin
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Joined: Wed Mar 20, 2002 7:11 pm
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DOS floppies, make your own:
http://www.bootdisk.com
edwin/evasive

Do not assume anything

System error, strike any user to continue...
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