bios upgrade for large disk support

[Slithy Tove]

I added a Seagate 18gb drive to my Compaq Presario (9660) but bios supports only up to 8gb. I contacted Compaq TS through web and inquired about flashing bios to increase capacity. They recommended Sofpaq SP9847 so I reviewed descriptive text for that fix. It had no reference to disk support. I inquired again if this fix addressed my problem and received from Compaq "upgrading the BIOS would give you the best chance of increasing the system’s capacity.....". They don't know ! Their 1st-level support doesn't know how to find out ! They support their hardware and customers with this kind of nonsense !! Can anyone help ?? THANKS..............bk

 

[RandyG]

OK, let's be fair here. The system you are referring to came out in '96. No computer manufacturer has ever built, nor ever will build a system that is going to be 100% future proof and upgradeable. The most that systems that old will usually recognise is 8 GB of Hadd, and 128 MB of ram, and that is if you are lucky. Some don't even recognise that much RAM. You have 8 MB built on, and can go up to 136 MB.


Since you have what is termed a "legacy" system, most of the current support people have only basic understanding of that equipment, as they are constantly trained in all of the latest and greatest that come out.


Not a good answer in your opinion, but at least it is the truth. recognise the limitations in your machine, and the system, and you won't get POed as much at it. I don't say you have to like it, just recognise it!


Sorry I couldn't give you an answer you wanted.

 

[brianF]

You might want to investigate this from seagate, you can find it here, will install a overlay on your system to allow it to recongnize the full size of the drive


http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/drivers/discwiz.html
What is Disk Manager?

Disk Manager is a DOS-based program designed to overcome BIOS capacity limitations (i.e., 528 Mbytes, 8.4 Gbytes, and 33 Gbytes) for ATA (IDE) drives and Operating System limitations (i.e., 2 Gbytes, 8.4 Gbytes, and 68.5 Gbytes) for both ATA and SCSI. Disk Manager can be used on both ATA (IDE) and SCSI drives to facilitate extremely fast partitioning and formatting.


Disk Manager® - DOS floppy-based program, meaning it is not limited to Windows. All users building a new system or installing a new disc drive, including those with high-speed Pentium chips, can benefit from this program. In addition to solving BIOS limitations for older systems, Disk Manager facilitates extremely fast partitioning and formatting for both old and new systems. Disk Manager prepares FAT 16 and FAT 32 partitions for Windows 2000/NT/Me/98/95.

 

[RandyG]

Wow, disregard everything I said. If this thing works then it will solve a big problem with legacy systems.

 

[brianF]

Be carefull, I am pretty sure it will erase everything on the drive, for a new install no biggie, just reinstall, for a drive with a lot of data, ouch unless it's backed up

 

[Slithy Tove]

Hey- thanks for taking the time to reply. I had already investigated Seagate's DiscWiz and it WILL work. It takes more overhead than a bios solution so the bios upgrade would be preferable. I understand and agree about being fair to TS, but if they do not know they should say so and refer the problem on to 2nd level, etc. No-one is expected to know everything about everything. I have tried to download DiscWizard seven times, and each time I get part way through (56kb dialup) and the download craps out with "connection to the server was reset". I have eMailed Seagate's TS to see if there is an alternate server, but no response yet. I am painfully aware that I will have to migrate everything off the new drive before I reformat it to gain the additional space (if I ever acquire a working solution). Thanks again for all the help and suggestions,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,bk

 

[slipe]

You do indeed have to format the drive to apply an overlay. Since the HD is new there probably isn’t much on it and you can transfer anything you want to save to the old drive. Even if you flash the BIOS you will likely have to reformat to get the 18Gigs recognized.

You say you “added” the drive. If it isn’t your boot drive you can just right click on the drive in Windows Explorer and select “Format”. That is the safest way to do it as you won’t take any chances with losing data on your boot drive. Then just follow the Seagate instructions for the overlay.

Make sure you partition it with the Seagate utility if you plan to partition. You can’t use an aftermarket program like Partition Magic to partition on the fly with the overlay on the HD.

Another option is to get an ATA card. Your HD will run faster and they are cheap. The Promise ATA66 cards are going for $16 on Pricewatch and an 18Gig drive isn’t going to exceed the 66Mb/sec throughput. An ATA card has its own BIOS and will recognize the full size of the HD. Your 18Gig is faster than the drive that came with the computer anyway, but it will be much faster on the card. If you go that route you will want to make it your boot drive. Get back and someone can walk you through changing it over with xcopy.

 

[ksuwyldkat]

If this is a new drive, the cd that came with it (if you have it) should have the Disk Manager on it.

 

[brianF]

Another option is to get an ATA card. Your HD will run faster and they are cheap. The Promise ATA66 cards are going for $16 on Pricewatch and an 18Gig drive isn’t going to exceed the 66Mb/sec throughput. An ATA card has its own BIOS and will recognize the full size of the HD. Your 18Gig is faster than the drive that came with the computer anyway, but it will be much faster on the card. If you go that route you will want to make it your boot drive. Get back and someone can walk you through changing it over with xcopy.

Didn't think of that, that really would be a good soloution for the new drive.

 

[Slithy Tove]

I began to get excited about the ATA card solution when a friend told me that ATA is a solution for IDE only, and I am dealing with a SCSI disk. Is this true ? If yes, is there something similar for SCSI drives ? TNX.........bk

 

[Slithy Tove]

Does any company make a SCSI controller with on-board bios ? I have tried searching the net and nothing I have seen looks quite right. bk

 

[RandyG]

Hi Billy,

I've just had a root around Adaptec's site, adn I found an interesting article that says that

The 19160, 29160n, and 29160 cards have a 512 Kbit / 64 KByte BIOS (flash) chip. . . . The 39160 has a 1Mbit / 128 KByte BIOS (flash) chip

That is just referring to their newer range, but it was my understanding that any add-on SCSI controller card had it's own eprom chip and BIOS, but all built-onto-motherboard SCSI controllers shared the system BIOS.

As to any other company making SCSI cards, I don't know if any do. Adaptec is the name I have always associated with SCSI.


But then again, I could be wrong. I never claim to know it all