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Detailed Instructions on Uniflash & Bios Settings, Pleas

Posted: Thu Jul 25, 2002 10:07 pm
by greyc123
I've downloaded the latest uniflash files and am feeling really really dumb. How do I use the extracted-onto-a-floppy files?

I'm trying to replace a 6.4 gig drive from an AMD K6-2 (VIA Apollo (M)VP3 chipset) 07/15/1998-577+ITE8661-2A5LEH0AC-00. The new drive is a 60 gig Maxtor 5400 and I can't get it to be recognized. I've tried the jumpers 6 ways to Sunday, fiddled in the cmos with user defined settings, tried the maxblast plus II files, still nothing. Hangs after the mem check. Auto detect also hangs. The Maxtor techie tells me I need to either flash or try an ata card. I'd like to use uniflash as it seems the most appropriate way to go.

Here's where I'm feeling dumb: How do I get to a DOS prompt without a hard drive installed and, if I get there, what do I do?

And how/where do I disable flash write protect in the BIOS?

~Thanks~

Grace

Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2002 11:21 am
by NickS
Welcome to a fellow PC-Chips M577 owner !

If you have Windows XP or ME, the easiest route for a newbie is to download and run a Dos 6 or DRDOS boot disk creator from http://www.bootdisk.com.

If you have Windows 95 or 98 you should be able to create a bootable diskette using the "format" function, ticking the box which says (if I remember correctly) "copy system files", or by going to a DOS prompt (Start/run/"command") and typing FORMAT A: /s/u.

Use the file for M577 at http://wims.rainbow-software.org/ as this has support for discs up to 64 Gb.

Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 3:19 am
by greyc123
Thanks Nick, I successfully made and used a win 98 boot disk, then ran awdflash and it froze up.

Rebooted and ran uniflash.exe and am now stuck on "file name" for the new bios. What do i use as the file name? I checked the directory of the uniflash floppy and I get no indication as to what I should do now.

Please help!

Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2002 10:56 am
by NickS
greyc123 wrote:Thanks Nick, I successfully made and used a win 98 boot disk, then ran awdflash and it froze up.

Rebooted and ran uniflash.exe and am now stuck on "file name" for the new bios. What do i use as the file name? I checked the directory of the uniflash floppy and I get no indication as to what I should do now.

Please help!
OK, I hope you unzipped the BIOS file to 990306r.bin. You copied uniflash.exe and 990306r.bin to the diskette. Boot from the diskette. Then all you need to type is "uniflash -e 990306r.bin". :)

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2002 2:08 am
by greyc123
IT WORKED, NICK! Thank you so very much for your help! :D

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2002 6:46 am
by greyc123
...only now I can't get xp to install...

hangs at reboot with "error loading operating system"

tried going back to the boot disk and I get "non-system disk" error

please direct...

Grace

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2002 10:15 am
by NickS
OK, is your drive a UDMA33 drive ? Probably not, as it's 60 Gb it's probably UDMA66 or UDMA100. You need to get the utility from the Maxtor website to tell your drive to run at UDMA33.
http://www.maxtor.com/softwaredownload/utilities.html
Choose file 100updt.exe

Also, have you tried to use MaxBlast at all ?
edit: Yes, I see that you have.
I know that Seagate's Disk Wizard uses a Dynamic Disc Overlay which needs to be removed, and IBM's Disk Feature Utility has to be re-run to recover the full capacity of the drive, but I don't know what Maxtor does.
edit: See if there's a removal procedure.