Phoenix Technologies Bios & 40Gb HD Problem

[Martin109]

I'm trying to prepare an older Digital Venturis desktop as a dedicated Linux machine, and need to fit a 40Gb HD. The BIOS is only recognizing 8.4Gb, so I think I need to upgrade the BIOS if possible.

Belarc Advisor tells me:
Motherboard: Digital Equipment Corporation
Venturis-FX-5133 Rev.A02
Serial Number: AY64803127

Running the BIOS agent gives me the following:
BIOS Date: 10/01/96
BIOS Type: PhoenixBIOS Version 4.05
BIOS ID: Unknown
OEM Sign-On: None
Chipset: SiS 5511 rev 0
Superio: SMC 665GT rev 2 found at port 3F0h
OS: Win98
CPU: P54C 133 MHz
BIOS ROM In Socket: Unknown
BIOS ROM Size: Unknown
Memory Installed: 191 MB
Memory Maximum: (States 'Unknown' but it's 191MB)
ACPI Revision: Unknown

How do I go about sorting this out?

[cp]

enter the bios, autodetect the drive (clip to 32GB if it crashes), answer 2 or Y and exit saving. use any linux kernel above 2.4.18 and make sure /boot is within the BIOS known hdd size. linux doesn't care about the BIOS reports, queries the drive itself through the ide controller and uses LBA48.

[Martin109]

Thank you, cp I've now managed to get the system to recognize 32Mb.

The Linux part of the project is completely new to me, so I'll see how I go on that - I've got access to xubuntu bbs for help.

Thanks again.