120GB: MS-5186 Bios problems

[Dornfelder]

MS-5186 with latest BIOS V1.2 (02/02/2000), no newer from MSI available.
Harddisk Samsung SV-1204 (120GB) with this BIOS is not recognized, BIOS hangs.
(setting hd-jumper to 32GB-limit works (of course...)

I already tried biospatcher, wich resulted in detecting the 120GB-disk
and booting, but had also some strange sideeffects:

Board won`t boot anymore without Display connected (Hang on no errors activated)
The CPU-string in the Boot-screen is somehow overwritten (showing an additional "0K" [zero-K] at the end of the memorysize string.
Harddisktransfer seems to hang sometimes.

Looks like this was a little too much patched...
I`m thankfull for any help.

Dornfelder

[NickS]

I'll take a look and see what Rainbow's patcher does for it....

[NickS]

It seems to patch quite happily. For reference, the
BIOS ID string: 10/20/1998-VP4-686A-2A5LHM4AC-00
BIOS OEM string: W5186VMS V1.2 020200

Should be at the "untested" link in my signature shortly. Please let us know what success you have. You may have to use the HDD manufacturer's utility to reduce the UDMA mode to something that the motherboard will support (see thread on links to UDMA mode setting utilities in "Collected Wisdom").

[Dornfelder]

Many thanks for the quick help!

I´ll try it this evening, will report tomorrow.

Dornfelder

[Dornfelder]

@NickS

Thank you very much, it works!
Booting without display is working too.

I`ll do more testing over the weekend.

Bye,
Dornfelder

[NickS]

I'm glad it worked - thanks for the feedback so far; let us know if you find any problems.

[Dornfelder]

Board with drive is working.
Linux complained about old bios:
"ACPI disabled because your Bios is from 98 and too old"
but got it working with command-line parameter "acpi=force" .

[NickS]

It looks as though they forgot to update the date field in the BIOS ID string, "10/20/1998" although the BIOS ID message says "020200"! It could be fixed, but I don't know whether that is the "right thing" to do.

[Chaotix76]

Hi, I tried to flash the Bios for the same reason, but it's write protected. Can't find a manual, on MSI-Homepage the MB doesn't even seem to exist.

Can anybody tell me how I disable the write protection?

[nub2008]

Sorry, I'm new to this. You should get advice from someone more experienced. But, I don't know if anyone is going to add to a three year old conversation.


Hit delete in the pre-boot phase of computer start up. Go into the setup menu. Go into Bios set up. Disable Bios Shadowing. And other options listed at:

www.lejabeach.com/Guide/awardbios.html

or This article might be helpful.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/33

Tell me if it works. I'm looking to do it after find a new CPU.

Good luck from the Nubbie

[Chaotix76]

After all UniFlash did the job AWDFlash refused to do.