Page 1 of 1
40GB: HP Brio BA600
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 5:51 pm
by rkress
Ok, here is whats going on.
I have a HP Brio BA600 Motherboard. I found the bios update i need to enable the bios to recongnize the entire 40GB rather than just 32GB. I was trying to install windows 2000 over the weekend and it was reporting only 8GB when it was detecting the size of the drive. I did a little research on M$'s website and i found that this error is actually caused by the hard drive only reporting 15 heads instead of 16. After I reflash the bios when the drive is recalculated to 40GB will it use 16 heads instead of 15, thus enabling Windows 2000 to properly detect the size of the drive?
Thanks
Ron
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 7:22 pm
by rkress
Update:
Just did the bios update and the drive is still detected as 33824mb.
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 8:10 pm
by soupy
Is the 32GB jumper still on the HDD? How did you determine the new BIOS supports >32GB?
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 8:15 pm
by rkress
What exactly do you mean by 32GB jumper? It's a western digital drive. I did have to do special jumper configuration for it to be recongnized by Bios. Instead of having no jumpers for a master drive i had to add 2 jumpers.
This is the drive:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg ... MQ**&p_li=
Its a 10-pin model jumpered for single in the neutral position.
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 8:30 pm
by soupy
Ok, I just tested the latest available BIOS for the Brio BA600 from the HP website, and it doesn't seem to support >32GB. It is patchable, though.
Strange BIOS, too. It claims to be Award 6.0, yet it opens with MODBIN 4.50.82a, which IIRC is only for Award BIOS 4.51PG and prior...
And MAN is this thing dumbed down...2/3 of the options are disabled.
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 8:35 pm
by rkress
Ok, well i patched it with the update posted on the downloads page. It updated it to 27.10 (QWH.10.1) patched for 128GB HDD by Wim's team.
It appears that that drive is still jumpered for 32GB. I'll have to try removing all the jumpers when i get home later to see if bios will recognize the 40GB.
Is there anyway to update the bios so 2/3 of the disable features will be enabled?
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 8:47 pm
by soupy
rkress wrote:Ok, well i patched it with the update posted on the downloads page. It updated it to 27.10 (QWH.10.1) patched for 128GB HDD by Wim's team.
Ah, you never mentioned that. It should work, then.
Still getting the 32GB barrier though. Is it possible to update it to support drives bigger than 32GB? Or is it just time to get a new MB
Also, it appears that that drive is still jumpered for 32GB. I'll have to try removing all the jumpers when i get home later to see if bios will recognize the 40GB
This might help:
http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp
Are you using the standard or alternate jumper settings?
You can use MODBIN.EXE to play with the hidden settings.
You do this at your own risk.
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 8:49 pm
by rkress
The drive is still jumpered for 32GB (alternate settings), which also causes problems with Windows NT,2000, and XP. So hopefully once the jumpers are removed Windows 2000 will recognize more than 8GB of the drive.
Is there anything worth re-enabling by using modbin.exe?
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:10 pm
by soupy
Maybe. CAS latency, AGP Aperature size, IRQ handling, USB keyboard support, CPU L2 ECC checking, Gate A20 speed...
You'll have to decide if it's worth the risk.
Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2003 9:13 pm
by rkress
I'll have to check it out later.
I would only consider enabling features that would significantly increase the speed of the system.
Thanks for the help so far!
Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 3:24 pm
by rkress
Is there an option that is disabled that will let me enable assign IRQ for VGA? I'm having video conflicts.
Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 4:20 pm
by soupy
Can't find anything.
Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2003 4:38 pm
by rkress
D'oh!
Oh well i guess i need to find a driver that will stop freezing my workstation.
Thanks
