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40G: 09/22/98-i 440 LX-W977.ATC-6130 C-00 (Ver 2.0 02 GS)
Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2004 8:11 pm
by jathreya
Hi,
My dad's PC is a P266 (Celeron) on an A-Trend ATC-6130 motherboard with a 2G disk. I'd like to upgrade him to a 40G disk. I've noted that your site has an updated driver to recognize disks upto 64G. (thanks for that!) I have a couple of questions on the BIOS upgrade:
1) The current BIOS ID is 09/22/98-i 440 LX-W977.ATC-6130 C-00 and ATC-6130 Ver 2.0 02 GS. Do I need to upgrade the BIOS to Ver 2.0 05 GS before I apply your patch?
2) If yes, then could I use the BIOS upgrade on driverguide.com to upgrade the driver to the base 2.0.05 version?
3) What is the best way to flash the new BIOS? Award's BIOS Flasher or Uniflash?
4) I saw a reference to a 32G jumper cable. Could you explain that reference?
5) Is there any reason I would need an LBA BIOS extender after doing all of the above?
6) The base controller on the motherboard is an ATA/33 one. Is there an advantage to upgrading the controller to an ATA/133 to match the speed of the 40G HDD?
Many thanks in advance.
---Jagan
Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 12:45 am
by Denniss
1/2)You only need to flash our patched Bios from
http://wims.rainbow-software.org/
3)Uniflash should work fine on your mainboard/chipset
4)Some HDD over 32GB have a capacity limitation jumper with default at limitation set - check the HDD jumper table printed onto the HDD or HDD documentation
5) No
6) Your mainboard should be fast enough for a 40Gb HDD regardless of UDMA specification - 40GB drives hardly reaches 30MB/sec
BIOS upgrade OK but Win98SE unable to recognize 40G drive
Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 3:38 am
by jathreya
Hi,
Thanks to Denniss for the tip on the BIOS upgrade. I was able to flash the BIOS upgrade successfully. I was able to get the second drive added and I formatted the drive as FAT32 with four 10G partitions. I was able to bring up Windows successfully and transferred some folders from the current C: to the new D: drive (other drives were E, F and G).
Unfortunately, my dad has been reporting problems with the new drive. First, Windows kept scanning the D drive before bringing up the desktop screen. Now, it is reporting this error"A device attached to the system is not functioning". During this time, the BIOS continues to detect the C and the D drive without errors. I've asked my dad to run the PowerMax utility that came with the 40G Maxtor drive.
Any ideas on the problem or suggestions on solutions?
Thanks in advance.
---Jagan
Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 3:40 am
by edwin
Power supply on its way out perhaps? Board on its way out?
BIOS upgrade OK but Win98SE unable to recognize 40G drive
Posted: Mon Mar 22, 2004 3:52 am
by jathreya
Hi,
Thanks for the suggestion.
The C: drive is working just fine. My dad is able to use all other applications on his C drive: Outlook, Y! Messenger, Word, etc. But, no response from the D drive. FYI, the D drive is configured as a slave to the C drive using the master/slave drive cable provided by Maxtor.
---Jagan
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 7:47 am
by edwin
And the C: drive is set for master, not single drive?
BIOS upgrade OK but Win98SE unable to recognize 40G drive
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 8:39 am
by jathreya
Right. The configuration is:
Primary Master: Samsung 2G (original C: hard drive running Windows98SE)
Primary Slave: Maxtor 40G (new drive partitioning as 4 x 10G FAT32, D:, E:, F: and G: )
Secondary Master: Samsung CD-ROM
Secondary Slave: <None>
Funnily enough, partitions E, F and G of the new drive seem to be working fine. Partition D seems unrecognizable.
---Jagan
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 12:49 pm
by Ritchie
Funnily enough, partitions E, F and G of the new drive seem to be working fine. Partition D seems unrecognizable
Sounds like something weird happened in the creation of the new partitions. I think each drive has to have it's own primary parition and then secondary paritions. You probably did this correctly as I am unsure whether a secondary partition can be created without a primary partition. But I think you sometimes also have to set partitions as active and perhaps you forgotten to do this with the first partition, which in turn might be upsetting Windows. I am assuming the use of FDISK.
The other thing worth mentioning is that putting the new (assuming new) 40GB disk onto the same cable as the 2GB drive will probably slow the transfer speeds of the new drive to the speed of the 2GB drive. Once you sort out the initial problem, I think it would probably be better off on the secondary channel. And then next time Windows is reinstalled on the machine install it on the 40GB. But I would sort out the initial problem first.
Hope this helps.
Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2004 7:45 pm
by Denniss
Do you have one extended partition with 4 logical drives or one primary partion and one extended partition with 3 logical drives ?
Is d: formatted ?
What does FDISK say to drive D: ?
Partitioned with FDISK or 3rd party tools ?
Re: How was the drive partitioned?
Posted: Sun Mar 28, 2004 8:01 pm
by jathreya
Hi,
Thanks for responding to my note.
Maxtor recommended using their utility PowerMax to partition the Maxtor drive. So, that's what I used to partition the 40G into four chunks of 10G each. I didn't use FDISK at any time to format the disk.
Regarding whether I had divided this into primary vs. secondary partitions, Maxtor's PowerMax utility just brings up a screen asking me for the number of partitions and the size of each partition. So, I plugged in 4 x 10G and let the utility do the configuration.
Some historical notes:
1) I moved the TEMP & TMP variables from C:\TEMP to D:\TEMP when I first installed the drive.
2) I also moved My Documents from C:\My Documents to D:\My Documents.
All these moves were successful and the drive (and its associated partitions) worked fine for a couple of days. A week later, the troubles started showing up in the following sequence:
a) repeated scanning of D drive before starting windows.
b) erratic appearance of D drive from the list of drives.
c) "device attached to the system is not functioning" error.
Since then, I've asked my dad to move TEMP back to the C: drive. Unfortunately, he didn't move My Documents in time. 
---Jagan
Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:09 am
by edwin
use the maxtor diagnostics on the drive.
Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 7:29 am
by Ritchie
Given that you used PowerMax to create the partitions, it is probably best not to modify the partitions with FDISK or any other utility unless you plan to wipe all the partitions and start again (after necessary backup of-course). At present I am not recommending starting the partitions from scratch.
But you could still use FDISK to view the partitions and see whether it reports each as active (I think a status A) or whether it reports any problems with any of them.
Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 1:51 pm
by NickS
What UDMA mode does the config screen report for the "D" drive ?
It's all done now!
Posted: Wed Mar 31, 2004 10:31 am
by jathreya
Hi,
The UDMA of the drive supports ATA/133 (left at factory default) but the motherboard UDMA is ATA/33. I saw a note about a Maxtor utility that can slow the UDMA setting to make it compatible with the motherboard.
Anyway, I just got an email from my dad today. Against the advice of counsel (i.e. me), he called his local PC/IT guy who tried a couple of tests and then reformatted the D: drive.
The good news is that the problem is gone. The bad news is so is the entire My Documents. 
I don't know if there's any more that can be done at this point. Thanks again for all your help.
---Jagan
Posted: Thu Apr 01, 2004 6:02 am
by Ritchie
Glad you sorted out the problem.
I don't get what that Maxtor utility is about. As far as I know, the BIOS will always set and drop down the UDMA (or PIO for very old drives) setting to a mode that both the BIOS and hard disk will support. Also, the BIOS will choose the best setting that the board and hard disk will handle.
Pity about your documents. Unfortunately a lot of IT people will not back up data before wiping your drive.