BIOS Updates forum

I inherited a computer with the following.
Pc Chips M810LR-XP v7.1a
Bios AMI m8010l 686 7.5 ca59 9/13 1914( this is a paper sticker stuck on top of the Bios chip)
Athlon XP 1.1 cpu
1 gig Ram 133 168pin ecc
WD 80 gig UDMA100
Liteon Cd
Nvidia geoforce 128
XP pro sp2
The pc runs very well . The problem is as stated in the subject title bar.
The Bios will NOT accept/recognise the hard drive unless the cd drive is slaved to it. I have tried all the power (acpi, acpi/apm etc) in the Bios to no avail. Also the first Bios screen shows the correct hard drive and udma then the cd drive, however when I press the delete button and enter the Bios I press the f3 button and the hard drive is shown as pio4. I am assuming this is because the cd drive is holding the udma back? and Windows shows pio4 on the Device manager.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Check the Master/Slave/CS jumper, with WD you have to remove the jumper or set to spare/Single-Master if no other drive is connected to the same cable.
Also make sure you have your IDE cable connected in the corect way: Blue end to motherboard and black end to master drive.

Never used WD before, so you live and learn. It required the Cs jumper. Again many thanks!!

just for your information: CS is Cable Select. this means that the drive's address (master or slave) is determined by the position on the IDE cable. as i already stated in another post here, i don't see a (realworld) practical use for CS and i don't encourage anyone using CS anyway.

back to your problem:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg ... 1106764846

as you can see there are all settings you know from other manufacturers, too. additionally WD drives have a jumper setting you have to choose when you're using it as a single drive (e.g. no other drive on that IDE channel except the WD drive). so you might rather try the single drive setting than CS.

I am of the opinion this WD40bb drive is a bit strange. It will ONLY and I repeat ONLY run as a Primary Master if the CS setting is selected. Any other setting the Bios won't see it.
I now have the problem of getting it to run under DMA . The device manager shows the Primary Master running under PIO, yet the Secondary Master(CD drive) running under Ultra DMA 2.
I have hacked the registry as per Microsoft http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817472
But to no avail. Still no UDMA.

After delving into the Western Digital FAQ' on EIDE and UDMA settings, I read where they say, IF RUNNING ONLY ONE DRIVE ON THE CABLE REMOVE THE JUMPER . I did and immediately UDMA 5 came up in the Device Manager.

well, that's why i posted a link to their site that shows the different jumper settings..i thought you were reading it.
anyway, nice to have the hdd up and running full speed.