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HDD not detected by my BIOS... ARGH!

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Reply 20 of 39, by Snookeroo

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zapbuzz wrote on 2021-07-25, 15:12:

And I always use a small pc fan mounted to vacuum air from the spindle underneath the disk it takes away about 15oC of operation heat build up in summer. Keeps older disks running longer.
I am still one owner of a maxtor diamondmax 8 from 2004 because of my method. It still runs in RAID with 3 others that arrived later.

I have installed one 60mm noctual exhaust fan at the back of my case, but unfortunately that will be the only fan I use (apart from the socket 1 cpu fan) due to the case having no other cut outs. I doubt it'll get very hot in there with only a TNT2 Vanta running.

This is the case I'm using btw, same as in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc0jA58LpGk&t … annel=ScanLines

Reply 21 of 39, by Snookeroo

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Repo Man11 wrote on 2021-07-25, 18:50:
Snookeroo wrote on 2021-07-25, 14:35:

I have no idea how to update my BIOS, especially because my mobo is too old to use USB. Can someone please share me a good guide or something?

https://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthrea … te-instructions

Thanks very much for providing this! I will do the BIOS update tonight after work and keep everyone here posted on how it goes.

A note: I am very impressed by how knowledgeable and helpful everyone is here on Vogons, what an outstanding community. I'm just some stranger asking for help and everyone has taken time to read my problem and respond in some way, awesome!

Reply 22 of 39, by astonsmith

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Snookeroo wrote on 2021-07-25, 13:20:

When using Cable Select, the BIOS IDE auto-detect just hangs. When using Master or Slave it just skips over after a few seconds and reports "NONE".

Everyone is right about the 32GB limit, but I wanted to comment on this.

In your first photo you show a 40-wire IDE cable. To make cable select work, you need an 80-wire cable. If you can find one, it'll also enable higher speed DMA modes (= potentially faster performance).

Reply 23 of 39, by Snookeroo

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Which version of AWDFLASH should I use? There are so many:
https://www.wimsbios.com/awardflasher.jsp

Also, for the boot floppy, can I just use the one which came in my Windows 98 SE box? Or do I have to make a different one using DR DOS (I have been struggling to find any guides on how to do this).

Thanks!

Reply 24 of 39, by AmiSapphire

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Snookeroo wrote on 2021-07-26, 11:18:
Which version of AWDFLASH should I use? There are so many: https://www.wimsbios.com/awardflasher.jsp […]
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Which version of AWDFLASH should I use? There are so many:
https://www.wimsbios.com/awardflasher.jsp

Also, for the boot floppy, can I just use the one which came in my Windows 98 SE box? Or do I have to make a different one using DR DOS (I have been struggling to find any guides on how to do this).

Thanks!

Apparently, the AWDFLASH version is 7.53.

You can use the Windows 98SE boot disk for this process. (You may have to press F5 at floppy disk boot to stop memory managers from loading if this is the Startup Disk, however. The format a: /s system disk method does not need this.)

Site update: cwcyrix.duckdns.org -> cwcyrix.nsupdate.info due to the former no longer working.

Reply 25 of 39, by Snookeroo

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AmiSapphire wrote on 2021-07-26, 11:57:

Apparently, the AWDFLASH version is 7.53.

You can use the Windows 98SE boot disk for this process. (You may have to press F5 at floppy disk boot to stop memory managers from loading if this is the Startup Disk, however. The format a: /s system disk method does not need this.)

Thanks for the help! How did you know that's the version of AWDFLASH I need? I'm interested so that I know how to figure it out next time.

Reply 26 of 39, by AmiSapphire

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Snookeroo wrote on 2021-07-26, 12:16:
AmiSapphire wrote on 2021-07-26, 11:57:

Apparently, the AWDFLASH version is 7.53.

You can use the Windows 98SE boot disk for this process. (You may have to press F5 at floppy disk boot to stop memory managers from loading if this is the Startup Disk, however. The format a: /s system disk method does not need this.)

Thanks for the help! How did you know that's the version of AWDFLASH I need? I'm interested so that I know how to figure it out next time.

evasive's mobokive archive had their archived AWDFLASH program, and the hex editor revealed the version number as 7.53. Also, their archived website listed a generic version on most of their boards; of course ftp links on archive.org = broken. (Certain Tekram boards had their own AWDFLASH version linked in their self-extracting EXEs, though. Your board used the generic AWDFLASH version.)

If this weren't determined, Uniflash would usually be used instead.

Site update: cwcyrix.duckdns.org -> cwcyrix.nsupdate.info due to the former no longer working.

Reply 27 of 39, by zapbuzz

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i think its worth noting in future that bios flashers from the year of motherboard manufacture to a year later are usually compatible. If it isn't it will simply refuse to work.
Works for me with award, ami, etc

A 98se bootdisk without autoexec.bat or config.sys .... a system disk from xp doesnt load all the stuff 98se does and is just as versatile.
but F5 yeah that should do it at boot.
Memory managers or cdrom drivers are not needed and are also not recommended for flash programming.
If it simply refuses to program then chances are you have the wrong programmer and need to seek either an earlier or later version.
Being normal to experience flasher version difficulty due to the wild nature of the internet you will not do damage it has fail proof tech such as checksums and part number recognition.
Uniflash also employs fail proof but this tool is your last resort where there isn't a compatible programmer available.

i looked up the flasher information the above v7 looks legit
oh, BTW nice to meet you Tam I am Joe 😁

Reply 28 of 39, by Snookeroo

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I have been trying to create a Dr DOS boot disk so I can do the flash. Every time I try to write to a floppy I get errors so I bought a new box of floppies thinking perhaps the others were damaged. The new box arrived today and they get the same errors 🙁 Also, the Win98SE boot disk won't be read by either of the floppy drives I have tried...

See this post for more details about my floppy errors:
Always erroring when writing to floppies

I'm really reaching the end of my tether here! Could it be that all of the floppies I own are faulty? Even the new ones which were fresh out of the plastic wrap? Idk what I'm doing wrong... Maybe I should buy a disc burner and just bypass floppies altogether.

Reply 29 of 39, by Repo Man11

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Snookeroo wrote on 2021-07-28, 13:36:
I have been trying to create a Dr DOS boot disk so I can do the flash. Every time I try to write to a floppy I get errors so I b […]
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I have been trying to create a Dr DOS boot disk so I can do the flash. Every time I try to write to a floppy I get errors so I bought a new box of floppies thinking perhaps the others were damaged. The new box arrived today and they get the same errors 🙁 Also, the Win98SE boot disk won't be read by either of the floppy drives I have tried...

See this post for more details about my floppy errors:
Always erroring when writing to floppies

I'm really reaching the end of my tether here! Could it be that all of the floppies I own are faulty? Even the new ones which were fresh out of the plastic wrap? Idk what I'm doing wrong... Maybe I should buy a disc burner and just bypass floppies altogether.

It seems pretty unlikely that all of your floppy disks are defective - it's more likely that there is an issue with the floppy drive. Do you have a spare drive you can try? Can you create a new Windows startup disk or does that fail as well? https://kb.iu.edu/d/afwm

One reason I ask if you can create a Win98 boot floppy is that sometimes when using the DRDOS program with a known good floppy disk and drive, I have had it repeatedly give me that error. Formatting the disk didn't fix it, so I then tried creating a Windows boot floppy, had that complete successfully, then ran the DRDOS which then completed without any errors.

Last edited by Repo Man11 on 2021-07-28, 20:32. Edited 1 time in total.

"I'd rather be rich than stupid" - Jack Handey

Reply 30 of 39, by Repo Man11

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If you have the money, a USB floppy emulator is probably the best way to go. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taFP1J_lZBI

"I'd rather be rich than stupid" - Jack Handey

Reply 31 of 39, by Snookeroo

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Turns out I was able to make a Dr DOS v6 floppy and that has solved my problem. I successfully flashed my bios and now it can detect the 40gb drive. I'm currently trying to figure out how to get Windows 98 SE to accept it as an installation drive. I used fdisk to setup a large drive support partition, so I'm hoping that will work.

Thanks to everyone on here for all the assistance and suggestions, I really appreciate it.

Reply 32 of 39, by zapbuzz

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Snookeroo wrote on 2021-07-29, 10:49:

Turns out I was able to make a Dr DOS v6 floppy and that has solved my problem. I successfully flashed my bios and now it can detect the 40gb drive. I'm currently trying to figure out how to get Windows 98 SE to accept it as an installation drive. I used fdisk to setup a large drive support partition, so I'm hoping that will work.

Thanks to everyone on here for all the assistance and suggestions, I really appreciate it.

can this machine boot from disc?
Got a burner? got bootable dvd or cdrom with blank discs?

I have a bootable dos tool here called norton partition magic 8 makes compatable partitions up to 128gb in size for your issues
Its abandoned now. It used to be from a company called powerquest last version of theirs is v7

You can put most of the files onto 1 bootable floppy by leaving behind its boot info for yours and theres one 800k file to be put on its on on a second floppy
After booting to floppy 1 you may be asked for floppy 2

I would give you the floppy set but i consolidated it to cdrom becauee floppys aren't abundant but optical is. (discs)

Alternatively I am almost certain partition magic 7 or 8 is on archive you can get the suite and make the floppy set from its wizard but you can also try fdisk from windows Me it usually does up to 80gb disks
I have a winme floppy here if needed i can image it for trnasfer as well

ned flanders @ archive https://archive.org/details/@ned-flanders

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Last edited by zapbuzz on 2021-07-29, 12:20. Edited 2 times in total.

Reply 34 of 39, by Disruptor

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zapbuzz wrote on 2021-07-29, 11:53:

if anyone is interested about fat32 maximum capacity theory I am a witness to a 2TB single fat32 partition.

May you tell me the cluster size and how many clusters it has?

Reply 35 of 39, by zapbuzz

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i don't mind but what with? also I use 32k clusters for system disk and 64k for pure non boot storage
partitions created on windows 10 with 3rd party tool.
Being SATA i use the disk on a SATA150 PCI controller in windows 98SE and currently a 500gb PATA boot disk. (non AHCI )
The hard limit for fat32 is apparently 2tb because it is without AHCI support I have an idea though.

Reply 36 of 39, by Snookeroo

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Whenever I set my 40gb drive to "LARGE" mode in the BIOS the system just hangs right before it starts searching for a boot drive...

If I put it to "NORMAL" or "LBA" I'm able to boot to disk, but then fdisk will only make a partition of up to 8gb.

Gah! I've been at this for weeks! What should I do?!

Thanks again for all the help and support, Vogons.

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Reply 37 of 39, by Chkcpu

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Hi Snookeroo,

In the Award BIOS drive Setup, the "NORMAL" mode doesn't do any HDD parameter translation and will therefore always limit you to 8GB.
The "LARGE" mode is for drives that don't support LBA addressing, so it is seldom used.
The "LBA" mode is your prefered choice, and supports drives up to 128GB in this patched BIOS.

I don't know about Dr DOS, but MSDOS 5/6 is limited to 8GB drives and so is its version of Fdisk.
Just use Fdisk from Win98SE/Me to make larger partitions.

If you want to read up on the theory behind this, I wrote a "The BIOS IDE Harddisk Limitations" article back in 1999.
It is still available at: http://www.steunebrink.info/bioslim.htm

Jan.

Edit: updated my website link.

Last edited by Chkcpu on 2023-07-01, 13:49. Edited 1 time in total.

CPU Identification utility
The Unofficial K6-2+ / K6-III+ page

Reply 38 of 39, by Snookeroo

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Chkcpu wrote on 2021-07-31, 10:15:

Hi Snookeroo,

In the Award BIOS drive Setup...

What a concise, well written and informative response! Thank you for this information Jan, I appreciate the help a lot as I am very excited to get this Windows 98 SE gaming build up and running.

So I'll go ahead and stick to LBA, that's good to know. I will also give your paper a read when I get time.

I have been using the version of fdisk which came on my Windows 98SE OEM install CD-ROM and it keeps only creating partitions of 2gb if I specify LBA in the BIOS. I suppose I will try and find out what version of fdisk it is and see if I can find a later one which will fully utilise my hdd.

Thanks again for the help. I'll keep you posted on how I go.

Cheers!

Reply 39 of 39, by Snookeroo

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WOOHOO, VICTORY UPDATE

I got it! I am now finally inside a 40gb install of Windows 98SE!

It turns out that the automatic drive detection in the BIOS was setting the size of the drive to 2gb after you hit accept. I found this by going into a different screen of the BIOS and manually editing the drive size myself to 39993mb. Once I did this, and ran the drive in LBA mode, I was able to format all 40gb and install Windows! Excellent!

I still have a long way to go, and no build is ever truly complete, but I want to give a huge thank you to everyone in this thread who helped me, you're all excellent.

I will post some cool shots once I have it all done and setup nicely.

Cheers all!
Toby.