VH6

[Noel]

I have an Abit VH6 with both IDE cannot detect hard drives. Is bios update necessary to fix the problem?

[edwin]

Have you got a small harddisk to test with? Something like 10 or 20GB? In the mean time I'll check and see if there's an updated bios with a fix or if we can fix it ourselves if no update available.

[edwin]

http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/bio ... &model=113

Flash the latest version as it is fixed for large harddisks. That "and above" statement is wrong, 137GB is the limit.

[Noel]

Thnx edwin

But the thing hard drives big or small capacity, cdrom drives or any optical drives are not detected. Pls help.

[cp]

(double-)check the ide cabeling, check the jumpers on the drives (master/slave) and check if the ide controllers are enabled in the bios.

[Noel]

(double-)check the ide cabeling, check the jumpers on the drives (master/slave) and check if the ide controllers are enabled in the bios.

@ cp: Thnx for the quick reply.

I have done/check those items but still it wont detect any IDE hard drives and optical drives. Both IDE1 and IDE2. Does the bios has something to do with it?

[edwin]

I fear the controller has died then
Have you got any add-in IDE cards (ISA or PCI)? If so, disable the onboard controllers (not the disk options) power down, put in add-in controller card and try again. If it finds the drives the board is on its way out....

[Noel]

@ edwin:

Thank you for the reply. I agree with you.

[cp]

just for the protocol: a dead ide controller is possible, but _very_ _very_ rare. i'd flash the latest bios, load default settings in the bios and check the drives & cables again (maybe on another machine).
you could download (debian) linux installation floppy disks and connect the disks to the ide port waiting for the kernel to query the ide ports. maybe something interesting comes up ;)

[edwin]

I agree it's very rare but this board is old enough to be a candidate... I think I've kicked out 3 or 4 boards now on a total of 200 so it's not THAT uncommon to see one every now and then.

[Noel]

Thanks for the inputs guys. Appreciate it. I agree and maybe if I have time I will have to tinker the motherboard to see if something interesting will come up too.