BIOS Updates forum

Hello,

I have a pentium II 400Mhz pc running Linux (Toshiba M500). Recently I purchased a maxtor 100gb harddrive & installed the same on the machine. However, when I boot up the machine the new drive is not recognized by the BIOS & I get a message 'Press F4 to Skip....' & the machine just hangs.

BIOS ID String displayed on boot up -
07/01/1999-I440BX-8671-2A69KG0EC-00


From Wim's website I was able to gather the following info -
This is a Award BIOS
M/b manufacturer (G0) - Gigabyte.
Chipset - Intel 440BX/ZX/GX chipset (Pentium II/III based chipset)

Can anyone point me to a website or url from where I can download a newer version of the flash BIOS?

One more thing - I contacted Award Inc last week & they gave me a quote for 39.99$ for a BIOS upgrade. My machine is 7 years old & it wouldn't fetch me 20bucks if I were to sell it. Any help would be much appreciated?

Thanks,
Gradhakr

Hmmm, Bios-ID looks like a Gigabyte GA-6BXE.

You should open your case and have a look at your board, it should be clearly marked between the PCI or ISA slots.

Yes Denniss, its a GA-6BXE. I opened up the box & peeled the Award sticker from the top of the BIOS chip. Underneath I see a white label which reads - 6BXE.

I am now going to visit gigabyte's website to see if they have a BIOS upgrade.

Do you know of any other source from where I can obtain the newer version of this BIOS. Your help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Gradhakr

Maybe Toshiba themselves but the only M500 I can find is a laptop? Please try and find the real Toshiba model number, they might have an OEM version themselves that we can patch.

just find the drive's clip jumper which limits the capacity of the hdd to 32GB (at least for the BIOS). now the bios recognition routine shouldn't hang anymore. once you boot into linux the kernel takes over and the full capacity of the drive will be available.

edit: i did some more searching..the lastest bios is here:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Moth ... uctID=1430

they added support for hdds larger than 32 & 64GB. excellent support by Gigabyte as usual :) so, no need to look for the clip jumper anymore ;)

Thanks guys.

I made some progress but haven't got my machine to work yet.

This is what I have tried since yesterday
*) Was able to download the GA-6BXE Bios updates from Gigabyte.
*) Created a boot disk. On my XP laptop -> My Computer -> A:Drive -> Right click & format -> Checked boxes for create a MS-DOS boot disk.
*) Put the flash program & other files onto the disk
*) Inserted the disk into my machine & tried booting
*) But get this error message - Disk Boot Failure, Insert system disk and press enter.

Now, is there anything wrong with the boot disk. I tried downloading a couple of Win 95 versions from bookdisk.com. but came across same problem. Any ideas or thoughts folks....

Thanks
Gradhakr

is the computer accessing the drive? set the boot sequence to A-C-SCSI, enable the fdd controller in the bios and set drive A to 1.44MB.

Yes I set boot sequence in bios to A-C-SCSI. I didn't see an option for 'enabling fdd controller in the bios'. The computer does seem to access the floppy drive as I can see a green light for a brief time. The light goes away after a couple of seconds & then immediately I get the error message - DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER.

thanks,
Gradhakr

I disconnected the signal & power cables to the hard drive, set the boot sequence to A, C, SCSI, inserted the boot disk into the A:\ drive & started the machine. I see that the A:\ drive is being read (green light) but after a few seconds I get the error message - DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK & PRESS ENTER. I created the boot disk by downloading a boot image from bootdisk.com & copying the image on a 1.4mb floppy using my laptop. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

don't copy the image, execute the file so the image inside is imaged to the floppy... those are self-extracting files, you can't simply copy them.

I am sorry what I meant by copy was - I did execute the file (.exe) which I downloaded from bootdisk.com & then the boot image was extracted to the floppy.

I disconnected all hard drives (signal & power cables) & set the boot sequence to A, CDROM, C in BIOS. Then I inserted the boot floppy disk into the A drive & rebooted. I can see that the system tries to boot from the floppy drive (green light on the drive) but after a few seconds, I see the Disk boot failure message. Could the problem be that I formatted the floppy using a usb based floppy drive connected to my laptop. Any suggestions.......

Use the floppy drive you want to flash the board with temporarely in another system to format the floppy with. It is still possible your flashing floppydrive is busted.

Hello, I think my floppy drive is fried! If I buy a new floppy drive & hook it up to my pc will the machine recognize the drive. Apart from connecting the drive controller & power cables to the new drive, do I need to run any software to set the drive up. There are many online stores selling 1.44mb floppy drives for less than 15$. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanx!

no setup, no software. just hook it up and go.