Hard Drive Problem

[Ashcrow]

I'm trying to outfit an old duel-pentium 233mhz machine with a new hard drive (20gig) but I can't the the machine to properly find it. When I install Linux or a BSD it works and goes all the way to the installation of the bootloader (IE: packages install off the network, format of HD goes great). The bootloader either fails becuase it can't find the geometry of the BIOS -OR- it installs but after reboot the BIOS doesn't recognize the hard drive.

The machine has 128 MB of RAM (4x32's and 4 open RAM slots) with a TYAN some Mother board, and Award BIOS from 1996.

[stryder144]

Did you look for a bios update? I had a computer from 1995 that had to have a bios update in order to see an 8.4gig hdd. Go to Tyan's website and try to find the update.

HTH

Cheers

[Ashcrow]

Thats a posibility, now I need ot find out how to make a DOS boot disk from Linux so I can flash the bios :-/.

[stryder144]

[quote author=Ashcrow link=board=3;threadid=7267;start=0#66982 date=1056264675]
Thats a posibility, now I need ot find out how to make a DOS boot disk from Linux so I can flash the bios :-/.
[/quote]

Doh!

[trickster]

Get your FreeDOS from here.

[pbharris]

ash - you have pm

[Ashcrow]

Thanks guys I'll give it a shot

[Ashcrow]

Ok, I have the BIOS updated to the latest version as specified from TYAN for award and the motherboard. Unfortunatly, it still does not see the HD in the BIOS.

Any other ideas?

[mcdougrs]

Well I remember when I was installing my hard drive I had to make sure the jumpers were in the right place for the BIOS to recognise mine. Did you get this 2nd hand? If you did maybe they had the jumpers for a slave setup and you may need it for a master drive... Just a thought

HTH,
Ryan

[Schotty]

I find that some mobos like to have either cable select on all of the drives or just master/slave jumperings. Try changing that around, it may help.

Also, I know that Maxtor and Western Digital come with utility disks, try using that. That will toy with the boot sector and shit, so do keep a copy of the utility on hand in case you need to fuck with the MBR and soforth after you install your OSS OS of choice :P

If you got it second hand, the aformentioned vendors have download area for the tools. I cant recall the Maxtor app name, but Wester Digital uses "Data Lifeguard" or something. Oh, and if you expect to use USB parts inside these DOS apps, make sure the bios is set to do so ;D I had a buddy do that and had a USB mouse and keyboard. Had to use the ps2 adapters to make it abe to change settings in teh bios so we could run the tools.

Each of the tools does have a utility that will scan your bios, then your drives geometry parameters and try to "fake" or "bullshit" the bios into allowing the drive to work. Sometimes there arent any new enuf patches to allow a old machine to talk to say ... the latest 200GB drives. These tools try their damnedest to get around the laws of IC's.