BIOS Updates forum

Hello to all guis,

I have the following problem with my new 80 GB HDD.

With my board-default bios the computer hangs at boot with the hdd installed.

So I flashed my bios with the newest version, i could get on epox's ftp side. ("...Fixed: >32GB IDE...")

Now the computer starts normally, but will not detect my hdd.
The Modell of the hdd is a WD 800 BB. So tried EZ-Install, but the newest EZ-Version doesn't detect any drive. (An older does, but not after leaving the tool.)
The Advice to Configure any drivesize (e.g. 1023C 16H 63S) manually and to use EZ after that, only produces a controller error.

Thanks in advance.
Claus

Get patched BIOS at http://wims.rainbow-software.org/. No need for EZ-Bios then.

hello rainbow,

at first I want so say, that I was very happy about your fast answer. I have read it allready on sunday.
and I think that you an your friends are making a very good job.

But I'am sorry. I have not flashed my bios till now, cause I fear of any problems, cause I can not imagine that its so easy to patch a bios without making any mistake.
For me Bios-flashing is like a heart-transplantation. I can get bad at once, but It can do so at every moment later. And If you have an 80GB HDD of Data hanging on this Heart, its not so easy to trust on a patched Bios. Thats the cause too, why I don't want EZ-Bios to make this job of Adress-"translation".

Is that a wrong opinion ?

Then there was the problem, too, that the bios you suggested too me was only tested with a 40GB HDD till now, but the latest unpatched update from epox was allready for HDD >32GB. But for me the 64GB-Border is relevant.

Thanks for reading my long text.

Claus

BIOSes at http://http://wims.rainbow-software.org are tested to work. If it works and it says up to 128GB, it should work.

hello rainbow,

now I have flashed my bios. the big bang did not happen. God thanks.

the flashingprocess itself was o.k.
but...

the hdd is not recognized again: Primary master hard disk fail. and i have noticed, that now the size of the hdd is not computed during input of userdefined C H S. the autodetection does not work, too.

is it possible the EZ-Drive Ver. 9.09, the only tool ever showed the size of my hdd and let my partition it, has corrupted my drive so far that it was not recogniced from the BIOS.

How can I get rid of that EZ-Drive rubbish?

Has anyone tested the bios with a hdd grater than 64GB?
I askthis because in the txt-file of the download ther was only this line:"Tested by pekka to 40 Gb". I really don't want to make you angry.

Do you have any other suggestion?


Please help me


Blauer Claus

Did you clear CMOS after the flash ? Have you set the drive type to LBA/Auto ?
The EZ-Drive utility may change the capacity reported to the BIOS (IBM's version of Disk Manager does this) and you may have to set it to report full capacity again.

Thanks for answering NickS.

I used Awdflash 7.61 with the following switches: /py /sn /e

I loaded the defaults at the first boot. Is the CMOS thereby cleared enough ?

Or should I use the /cc switch of awdflash?


If EZ changes the displayed Size of the HDD it should recognized by the bios, or isn't it so?

Blauer Claus

Yes, the drive should still be seen but reported with a smaller capacity, typically 16GB or 32GB. Can the EZ-drive utility see it from diskette ?

I don't remeber the /e switch... restore defaults *might* be OK but /cc /cd is safer.

I will test the /cc -switch at this evening, cause I'am not at home. I can imagine that this is the key, cause my bios has no option to reset the cmos-basics like time, hdd and so on, too. It only loads the defaults for the rest of the cmos-data
( Info: /e is only to exit to dos after flashing-process)

EZ-Drive sees the 80GB HDD as 80GB. But It's the old Version and it doesn't report the right capacities after partition, still beeing in the program.
for example: you can select from 80GB, but at the end you get only 14GB for the the first partition and if you select 8GB for the fist, there are only 6GB left for the others. And after a reboot there is no drive at all, but after a second use of EZ-Drive it warns me from deleting the "comand.com" and so on. So I can see that there was data writen on tzhe drive.
But as i said, this is the old version. the newest version doesn't report any drive to handle with.

At this evening i will know more.

till then.

Claus

Looks as though the FDISK type utility used by EZ-Drive has the same problems as the old Windows95 and earlier W98 FDISK - see Microsoft: FDISK limitations on drives >64Gb.

I would raise a query with WD support about why the old version of EZ-Drive can see it but not the new (Data Life Guard) version.

Yesterday I bougth a New HDD, cause I had my throat filled up till my underlipps.

It is an 60GB Maxtor. (For the Science id would better be a WD, but don't want to risk it.)

I put it in my PC, started it and he runs up without any problems. He had recognized the HDD with its full capacity and brand.

... and I thought, why I havn't bought at first a 60GB HDD and worked for 3 weeks on this dead projekt.


... and now, at last I flashed my BIOS back to the original bios before patching,

... and: the 60GB HDD works, too.

No wonder. The BIOS 04/11/00 is for HDDs up to 64GB and the patch I used has no effect (except of not to compute the hdd-size after installing).

... and I have said it a lots of emails before:
if it's really only "tested with a 40GB HDD by pekka", this is no evidence for a working patch for HDDS over 64GB.

• The txt-file of the Patch:
  
  Epox VP3 128 Kb BIOS
  Model support: EP-58MVP3C-M, EP-51MVP3E-M, EP-51MVP3F-A, EP-58VP3A
  EP-5BVP3A, P55-VP3
  Tested by pekka to 40 Gb
  
  04/11/00-VP3-586B-W877-2A5LEPA9C-00
  04/11/00 For Apollo VP3 AGP/PCIset
  
  D:\Hardware\epox>..\award\awd64gb vp300411.bin
  AWD64GB.EXE - Award BIOS patcher for HDDs over 32GB & 64GB v0.9
  Copyright (c) 2002 Rainbow Software (http://rainbow.ht.st).
  
  Searching for Main Block...Found at 0
  Searching for end of last block...Found at 103063
  Decompressing Main Block...Decompressed 86201 bytes into 131072 bytes
  BIOS ID string: 04/11/00-VP3-586B-W877-2A5LEPA9C-00
  BIOS OEM string: 04/11/00 For Apollo VP3 AGP/PCIset
  INT13h Extensions...Present: new-style
  => BIOS already supports HDDs over 32GB!
  Searching for size calculation routine...Not found
  Searching for SETUP size calculation routine...Found at 97973
  Searching for another free space...Found at 113953
  Searching for XGroup Block...Found at 86876
  Searching for end of last block...Found at 103063
  Decompressing XGroup Block...Decompressed 6552 bytes into 9206 bytes
  Searching for size calculation routine...Found at 1712
  Searching for free space...Found at 9206
  Patching code at 1711
  Searching for SETUP size calculation routine...Not found
  Replacing Main Block...Compressed into 86235 bytes...Moved blocks by 34 bytes
  Replacing XGroup Block...Compressed into 6607 bytes...Moved blocks by 55 bytes
  Updating checksum...Located at 118782...Updated OK

I'm sorry.

Blauer Claus

Blauer Claus, thank you for your feedback. This appears to be the second BIOS out of over 40 BIOSes patched by Rainbow's utility which has had a problem with drives >64GiB.

I don't quite understand what you say, though. Above you say you can now see both the 60GB and the 60GB. I assume you mean 60GB and 80GB but you don't make it clear whether this is in the BIOS and Windows or only in Windows. I understand that Pekka should not have needed a patched BIOS for his 40GB drive.

To the best of our knowledge and belief, an Award BIOS which has been patched for the 64GiB display limitation bug by Rainbow's automatic patching utility will no longer suffer from that bug. However, as you may be able to appreciate, we are unpaid volunteers and we cannot test every patched BIOS with every size and every geometry of drive. For a start, we usually don't have the exact motherboard. Other limitations may be present in specific versions of Award BIOS and that is why we make it clear that these BIOSes are used at your own risk. We rely on people to test them and provide feedback.

Thanks again, and please let us have any more details that you can.

Primary master hard disk fail - do you have jumpers set correctly If it's WD drive and there is no other device on the same channel, you must configure it as single, not master (usually by removing all jumpers).