BIOS / HARDDRIVE problem

[eXtremist]

I'm fixing a computer for a friend and ran into a problem..

My friend just bought a brand new Quantum Fireball Plus AS (40GB) and wanted me to intstall it.. I popped it in and realized the BIOS was too old to detect it (showed up as 8GB).

So I went on the PCChips homepage and got the updated version of the BIOS (an M565) and flashed it. Everything went well until I tried to autodetect the drive, at which point the computer locked up.

The BIOS readme specifically says that support was added for drives >8GB, so I was a bit dissappointed. I tried multiple configs (PriMas, PriSlave, SecMas, SecSlave) but it would always lock when it got to detecting the drive. The BIOS can detect my older drives fine, so I know its an issue only with the bigger one.

So anyway, here's what I did.. I got on the Quantum homepage and jotted down the specs for the drive, so I could enter them into the BIOS myself. Here's what I found:

[/QUOTE]
Cylinders: 16,383
Heads: 16
Sec/Track: 63
[/QUOTE]

Okay.. So far so good..! I entered these values into the BIOS and what should happen....the BIOS thinks it's 8GB (aaaaargh!).

So I notice another section there that says Tracks/Cylinder and I start playing around with it. The highest value I can assign to it is 255, and when I do that, the BIOS sees the drive as 40GB (eurika?).

What I want to know is will this cause any data corruption? The Tracks/Cyl value isn't specified on the drives homepage, so I don't know what to put there. I should mention that I fdisked the drive and then formatted it with no problems, and have access to all 40 GB or storage.

I'm quite sorry if this is a lenghty post, but I've had no help from quantum, and I don't know what to do. I'd like to keep the settings I used to make the drive work, but I don't know if this is a smart move on my part.

Any help would be appreciated.. If you need any specific information I can get it..

Thanks for reading this.
Greg

[YaRness]

this should prolly go in the hardware forum.

[bdg1983]

You should be safe.

My 17GB on a new Asus motherboard/bios shows

CHS (log) : 2096 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors CHS (phy) : 16383 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors

in Linux.

Did you select LBA for the drive?

[eXtremist]

I'm sorry I did not post in the hardware forum..

Just to update, as I said, I formatted the drive (with a /s parameter) and it appeared to go fine. However, although I can store files on the drive no problem, it will not boot. I checked to make sure the system files were there, and they are. I can't understand why it won't read the bootsector!

Greg

[Linuxcool]

You said that you formated with the /s parameter. Does that mean you used the msdos format command? Do you get an error when you boot? Does the bios have lba support and is it enabled?

[eXtremist]

Yes, I formatted it using DOS format (I know this is a linux forum, but I figured someone here could help me).

When its booting it says something to the effect of "Searching boot record of IDE-0...fail" .. then goes on to check the floppy and CDROM..

I'm thinking maybe the 255 I put in there is somehow making the boot sector of the drive unreachable.. Is this a valid assumption?

[Saptech]

Did you goto Quantum's website and find the Utility for that type of drive that should help to install it on an older system?

[eXtremist]

I've been there and didn't see such a utility.. I'm going there to have a look again..

update:: I checked and the only thing I could find was a utility for AWARD BIOSs.. I have an AMI in this computer... Something that was mentioned to me was that maybe I didn't mark the partition as an active boot partition.. I think I did, but who knows. Something to check into when I get home.

[ 10 September 2001: Message edited by: eXtremist ]

[eXtremist]

Just to put this to rest, I got it working..

I feel quite embarassed saying this, but when the drive was partitioned, I forgot to mark it as active....that's why it wouldn't boot!

I guess with all the screwing around flashing BIOSs and swapping drives I didn't see the obvious solution.

Thanks for all your help guys!