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80GB : 06/16/1998-VP3-586B-W877-2A5LEM4FC-00

Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2003 5:16 am
by Zorc
Hi, Ihave bought an 80 GB WD. My system won't recognize it at all. I been told I'd need to reflash but I don't really know what I'm looking for.
Here is all the info I've collected.

MS 5184 mainboard.

bios type: Award Modular Bios v4.51PG
bios ID: 06/16/1998-VP3-586B-W877-2A5LEM4FC-00

The new hard disk is MDL WD800JB-00ETA0

Any help would be great......THANKS !! :?:

Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2003 1:56 pm
by edwin
Check board surface for MS-5184 first before we can send out a bios upgrade for you.

Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2003 2:52 pm
by Zorc
Hi edwin,
Yes the mainboard is MS-5184.
Thanks so much!

Regards

Posted: Mon Oct 13, 2003 3:45 pm
by NickS
Zorc wrote:The motherboard is MS-5184.
I see I didn't follow the exact protocol in my first post, hopefully I didn't offend anyone.
It is worse that you started another thread for the same problem ! You can edit your original subject to put the info in the title and delete your other post.

80GB: 06/16/1998-VP3-586B-W877-2A5LEM4FC-00 / MS-5184

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2003 2:27 am
by Zorc
Hello,
I am curious as to where exactly I should look for the posted bios updates?
Can anyone please direct me???
Thanks,
Zorc.

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2003 8:58 pm
by NickS
Doing it now....
[edit]Emailed. Please give us feedback!

Feedback coming soon

Posted: Wed Oct 15, 2003 9:55 pm
by Zorc
Thanks NickS!!!
I'm at work right now but as soon as I get home I'll give it a go!
Thanks again. You may not see the feedback until tomorrow because of the time difference.
Thanks again!

Any feedback on what happened?

Posted: Thu Oct 23, 2003 2:01 pm
by donnek
Did you try the BIOS NickS sent you, and if so, what happened? I have the same mobo, and I'm thinking of trying to update the BIOS on it so that it can see two 80Gb drives, so I'm interested in your experiences.

MS 5184 update flash wasn't totally sucessful.

Posted: Sat Oct 25, 2003 9:36 pm
by Zorc
During the first reboot after flashing, I received a "CMOS Checksum error - Defaults loaded" F1 to continue.
I F1'ed to continue. Windows failed to completely run up.( an obvious video problem). Then...
Ctrl, Alt, Del - windows ran up fine, one popup regarding the previous video prob. I clicked "APPLY" and all went fine.
I double clicked my internet dialup icon....the computer rebooted. During the run up, I hit del to run setup......Standard CMOS setup could not be modified, exitted (pg up/ pg dn).
Reset button was then pressed and the CMOS re entered. I checked the other selections they seem to work fine.
Upon exitting the computer seem to loop in a vicious re booting cycle.
Restored my original bios.
Couldn't get my old dialup modem to come back to life......had to install my high speed connection.....I really wanted to wait until the new HD was in but I couldn't get online otherwise.

Re: MS 5184 update flash wasn't totally sucessful.

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 12:37 pm
by NickS
Zorc wrote:During the first reboot after flashing, I received a "CMOS Checksum error - Defaults loaded" F1 to continue.
This is to be expected - if you have just cleared the CMOS. However it will also clear the known good settings so it is best to record them before flashing.
I F1'ed to continue. Windows failed to completely run up.( an obvious video problem). Then...
Ctrl, Alt, Del - windows ran up fine, one popup regarding the previous video prob. I clicked "APPLY" and all went fine.
I double clicked my internet dialup icon....the computer rebooted. During the run up, I hit del to run setup......Standard CMOS setup could not be modified, exitted (pg up/ pg dn).
Reset button was then pressed and the CMOS re entered. I checked the other selections they seem to work fine.
Upon exitting the computer seem to loop in a vicious re booting cycle.
Restored my original bios.
Couldn't get my old dialup modem to come back to life......had to install my high speed connection.....I really wanted to wait until the new HD was in but I couldn't get online otherwise.
A couple of possibilities spring to mind.

One is that the P'n'P data has changed (flashing the BIOS should clear the DMI information) and your Windows installation is having trouble matching the new and old information. The fact that you still have trouble with the modem when you revert to the old BIOS suggests it could be something like this.
Was it a new installation of Windows, or were you adding a second drive to an existing installation ?

Another is that the BIOS reports a UDMA mode for the drive which the motherboard cannot handle. To get around this you can set the drive to a slower mode using a utility program from the HDD manufacturer; see .

Another option is that we patch the BIOS with a diffferent patcher. Would either of you like to try this ?

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 2:01 pm
by Zorc
Hi NickS,
I thought maybe the checksum error was normal but your first question,

"Was it a new installation of Windows, or were you adding a second drive to an existing installation ? "

No it was not a new windows installation...and I have not put the new drive in yet.
Let me tell you my plan of attack. Currently I have 3 very small HDD's and a CD. Therefore all my cable and mobo connections are full, I bought the big drive so I could have lots of space for the high speed internet.
I have left every thing as normal, I want to flash the bios then pull out all the HDD's, put in the new with a new windows install. Then I was going to plug the old drives in one at a time and retrieve any info I though I would like to keep.
As for you second question. I really wanted to stay away from the overlay program from WD, I've heard that they can be a real pain to get rid of. Having said that , I like to try another crack at the bios upgrade.
I wonder if donnek tried the first one?
What do you think?
Thanks,
Zorc

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 2:34 pm
by NickS
Stay away from the disk overlay program! especially if you are running a later OS (e.g. W2K or XP). I forgot to put in the URL referring to the post in "Collected Wisdom" about Links to UDMA (ATA) mode setting tools. As you had not yet installed your new drive this should not matter, and the problem is more likely to be the fact that the CMOS and DMI pool were cleared. Sometimes a later BIOS will change/add PNP IDs - check for incorrectly configured devices in Device Manager, (in safe mode if available).

I'll patch the BIOS with bp and post it in a little while, but it may also be worth trying the first version again using /cc/cd/cp switches on the Award flasher command line, and then installing Windows on your new drive rather than using the old Windows setup.

Posted: Mon Oct 27, 2003 4:52 pm
by NickS
Sorry, forgot to leave my sig with link to untested BIOSes. Look for (MSI MS-5184 bp).zip

Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 1:23 pm
by donnek
Sorry for the silence from me - I've been packaging a bit of software,a nd haven't checked here for a few days.

I haven't really patched a BIOS before, so I have to read up a bit on it. I'm also using Linux, so I'll have to find a Windows PC to sort out the boot disk, I think. I've downloaded all the stuff, so I'll try tomorrow and post the results. Also, a big thank-you to Nick for his advice.

Best wishes

Kevin

Success!

Posted: Sat Nov 01, 2003 3:28 pm
by donnek
Decided to go for broke today. Steps for the record:
1) Found my cobwebby Win95 PC and made a system disk by (in MS_DOS box) running: format a: /S
2) Deleted drvspace.bin off the disk
3) Downloaded uniflash133.zip, unzipped that, and put uniflash.exe on the disk
4) Booted target PC using the disk, and ran "uniflash" at the a:\> prompt
5) Went to CMOS submenu, and saved cmos to disk file. Then did the same again, using another name.
6) Saved current BIOS to disk file, then did the same again, using another name.
7) Downloaded Nick's MS5184_bp.zip, unzipped that, and put 5184_bp.bin onto the disk.
8) Booted again on the target PC, and ran "uniflash".
9) Chose to flash the BIOS, and typed in 5184_bp.bin. got a progress bar, then a chime and the message "Success!".
10) Rebooted, and told the BIOS to autodetect the hard drives, which it did immediately, both of them coming up as 80Gb. chose the defaults it suggested.
11) Installed minimal SuSE Linux on default partitioning, then took out the CD and rebooted. The reboot failed because it couldn't find an active partition, so I booted into Rescue, and used fdisk to set the bootable toggle on the install partition. Rebooted, and came up OK.

I still need to test this now with a full install, and then with RAID, but so far it looks good.

The BIOS info at boot used to read:
W5184MS V1.1 031099
and it now reads:
www.ROM.by, BIOS patch v4.00
W5184MS V1.1 031099 patched with bp

The ident string used to read:
06/16/1998-VP3-586B-W877-2A5LEM4FC-00
and it now reads:
12/16/2002-VP3-586B-W877-2A5LEM4FC-00

The chip id used to read:
AMD K6-2/475 CPU Found
and it now reads:
AMD K6-2(Chompers CXT)/475 CPU Found

Thanks to the people at Uniflash, and a big thank-you also to NickS for providing the magical BIOS file.