Web Hosting Talk : Other Forums : Web Hosting Lounge : motherboard problem

[coolguy23]

i was getting a 40 gig fijitsu hard drive and when i put it in the case and tried to update my bios, it wouldn't read it, the guy at the comp store told me that my motherboard is too old, will an update in the bios resolve this problem?

my motherboard is asus

[davidb]

Well im not sure. My best guess on why it would not work is because old motherboards have this problem with a 2 gig partion limit. Now when you said you tried to upgrade you bios, by try you mean it worked, or it failed?

[coolguy23]

ok, let me rephrase this this

i got a new 40 gig, put it in the case, hit del in the start up, went to auto detect but it didn't detect, computer store guy said that my motherboard is too old

will an update in the bios, as in getting a new bios, (can you even do that?) resolve this problem

my comp specifications are p2 333 mHz

[Palm]

Are you by any chance installing a second drive?
Because you need to make one master and the other one slave.

[JBIZ718]

New mother board.

It usually helps

Joe

[LBJ]

G'day coolguy23,

We do bios upgrades once or twice a week for older boards that get lost with drives with geometry giving greater than 8GB.

The short answer is that so long as Asus have released a bios upgrade for your *specific* board which includes >8GB support, then yes a bios flash will do the trick.

Not too infrequently we find that some boards can handle the larger geometry without flashing so long as we manually enter the geometry values.

I hope this helps some.

Best Regards,

[coolguy23]

ok, how much would a new mother board cost?
i asked the guy for a new one but he said that i'd be better off with a new computer, which i can't afford (unless some nice guy give me the money to buy one )

i'm trying to get a 40 gb, not a 8 gb, do you think that if i upgrade the bios, it will take the hard drive?
and how do i manually enter the geometry values

[markblair]

It sounds like this computer guy is just trying to make money. First he suggests a new motherboard and then a new computer, hmmm...

As for the limitation, those exist with the Operating System, not the motherboard. Unless your motherboard is more than 4-5 years old which in that case you would be better off replacing it since technology has changed drastically. The first thing I would do is go to ASUS and look for a BIOS upgrade for your motherboard. If they have one, and it's higher than you currently use, update the BIOS. It's free and a quick way to see if you will fix the problem while saving money. At the most, I would replace the motherboard if that doesn't work.

As for the OS, if you're running Windows98 or higher, you'll be fine with whatever partition size you want.

[Cyberpunk]

Give me the exact model number (including revision & bios revision number) of the drive & board & what type of IDE cable you are using, Older type or newer (thinner cores and twice as many). Was the drive on with another ide device and which channel.

Ill do some checking if you want and see if I can figure it out for you. (Used to deal with upgrading older & second hand computers a LOT).

[coolguy23]

i believe the model number is P2B-F/350-U
I don't know what my bios version is, how do i find this out?
and i don't know the rest of the stuff you asked for,

[LBJ]

G'day coolguy23,

Originally posted by coolguy23
i'm trying to get a 40 gb, not a 8 gb, do you think that if i upgrade the bios, it will take the hard drive?
and how do i manually enter the geometry values

Uhhhh yeah. Please re-read my previous post. That's what I was talking about. It's because you are going over 8GB (>8GB) that you are having a problem.

To enter the geometry manually simply choose a user type and punch in the heads, tracks, sec/trk, and then set to LBA. If the capacity calculates out to 40GB you will be set. If not, the bios flash will fix the problem so long as Asus have provided an updated bios to handle >8GB drive geometry.

Best Regards,

[Cyberpunk]

Heres your board:

http://www.asus.com.tw/products/Moth...b-f/index.html

Heres a fujitsu product listing for desktop spec HDD's (check your model and let me know):
http://hdd.fujitsu.com/global/drive/desktop.html

Tried looking up the bios revision history but the page cuts off loading too early and dosent get to your model , download the pdf manual and look for anything to do with drive support and see what the max size is (if its listed).

Its an early BX so I'm guessing drive support cuts off around 20GB mark. Assuming you were plugging everything together properly then its either drive support in the bios or an IDE conflict/fault.

A flash update "might" fix the problem coz i cant get to the revision/download entry cause of the broke page.

If the drive was on with another IDE device the problem could be it dosent like the cable (yours is probably old type) or it dosent like sharing a channel with an ata33 or lower spec device (your drive will be ata66 or ata100).

Flashing a bios is easy, just be very careful and triple check you have the right flash program and file!

Let me know how you get on.

[aleavens]

anouther option is to us Fujitsus disk manager. I am using it on an older system with a 13 gig hd. no problems so far and it's been a year. It is avalible at the Fujitsu site.

[coolguy23]

whoa!
thanks alot, i certainly will try this!
your a life saver