80GB: MSI 6183

[encephalopathy]

have an 83gb ibm hdd arriving tomorrow
don't think the current bios will support this size of drive

BIOS Date: 03/24/00
BIOS Type: American Megatrends
BIOS ID: 63-10B1-001169-00101111-071595-WHITNEY-1AAEB001
OEM Sign-On: A6183MS V1.7 032400
Chipset: Intel Whitney 82810 rev 3
Superio: Unknown
OS: WinXP
CPU: Pentium® III (0.25 µm) 627 MHz
BIOS ROM In Socket: Unknown
BIOS ROM Size: Unknown
Memory Installed: 511 MB
Memory Maximum: Unknown


there is an award version for my board
http://download.msi.com.tw/support/bos_exe/w6183v11.exe

i downloaded it and tried to flash the current ami bios to this award one
however i got an "insufficient memory available" error message so i bailed out

my questions are
- why did i get this error message? is it because i tried to convert an ami to award bios? & how do i get around it?
- if i do get the award bios flashed on can the bug be fixed so that it will accept my 83gb hdd

thanks for helping me out

[edwin]

use a bootdisk without autoexec.bat or config.sys, your problem is himem.sys loaded. You don't want that. See FAQ.

maybe. first try to get it flashed properly.

[Denniss]

Do not flash the Award Bios unless you really know the AMI Bios does not support your HDD !!!!
The AMI Bios already supports 40Gb HDD so your 80Gb might work too !

[encephalopathy]

thx - already thought of this - the drive arrived and when i had it connected the bios would auto detect it

i changed the jumper to 32gb and it works fine

i am going to try the award bios flash again as suggested
if it works then hopefully someone can fix the 32/64gb bug in it for me

if i can't get the award bios on then i will content myself with the 32gb until i upgrade..

thx for the advice!!

[encephalopathy]

mmm
started with boot floppy
this time went with no cd support
tried to run the flash program and no not enough memory errors this time

new message saying the file i want to use doesn't match the system one (checked the faq and was happy enough to go on)

new error message saying flash jumper locked and chip write failure
nearly died myself
switched off and on and everything still works with the ami bios
think i will sit tight unless any better ideas....

[Denniss]

So your HDD is not recognized without the 32Gb limitation jumper installed ?

Try to use IDe HDD Auto detect or set the port the new HDD is connectoed to "Auto detect" or try to enter manually the parameters for Cyl Head Sector (should be written on HDD) and enable LBA

Try to write to MSI support - sometimes they have a Beta Bios with big HDD support

I would not install a Bios that is called "initial Release"

[encephalopathy]

update

thx for the help
the drive was autodetected with the 32gb jumper on

ended up with the bios set not to recognise the drive at all and then formatted it from within windows

hence i now have an extra 80gb of space but i can't boot to that drive

satisfactory for me atm

cheers