Martinespl wrote on 2026-05-08, 21:21:

* whether this is BH6 rev 1.0 or rev 1.1,

Does'nt it have a white sticker on the last ISA slot showing the version? (Or am I confusing ABIT and ASUS boards now)

The only sticker on the board is the one at the top, between the CPU and the RAM slots, but it does not indicate the board revision.

1.0 and its subsequent 1.01 and 1.02 use the same BIOS - 2A69KA1EC. They also lack the proper divider for 133FSB (which is 1/4).
True 1.1/1.2 have coloured PS/2,LPT and Serial, and use the 2A69KA1VC BIOS. These HAVE the 1/4 divider similar to the more-advanced BE6-II, BX133-RAID and a few others.

Martinespl wrote on 2026-05-09, 09:35:

The only sticker on the board is the one at the top, between the CPU and the RAM slots, but it does not indicate the board revision.

On my BH6 there's this label ..

I was looking for a sticker next to the slot, while it was literally on the ISA slot itself. 😄
Thanks!

Do these BH6 boards have known issues detecting optical drives, or am I just unlucky that my board does not detect any of the three drives I tested?

As I mentioned earlier, I tried different IDE cables, jumper settings, and configurations.

I hope updating the BIOS to the latest SS version will help.

Martinespl wrote on 2026-05-08, 21:21:

Could you please help me determine: […]
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Could you please help me determine:

* whether this is BH6 rev 1.0 or rev 1.1,
* which BIOS version is the safest to flash,
* and whether this is a known issue with early BH6 boards?

There are several ways to determine whether you've got an ABIT BH6 V1.00/V1.01/V1.02 OR an ABIT BH6 V1.1/V1.2 - have a look on my specification page for this board where you also can download the latest BIOS f.e. -> https://soggi.org/motherboards/abit/BH6.htm.

Martinespl wrote on 2026-05-09, 18:45:

Do these BH6 boards have known issues detecting optical drives, or am I just unlucky that my board does not detect any of the three drives I tested?

The BIOS changelog doesn't mention any bug fixes concerning ODDs. So just try it out.

kind regards
soggi

I downloaded the BIOS image from Soggi, but the file is 262,144 bytes, while the backup of my current BIOS (BH6OLD) is only 131,072 bytes.

This suggests my BH6 rev. 1.01 uses a 128 KB BIOS chip, so the BH6_SS.BIN image is too large and cannot be flashed.

Martinespl wrote on 2026-05-15, 15:34:

I downloaded the BIOS image from Soggi, but the file is 262,144 bytes, while the backup of my current BIOS (BH6OLD) is only 131,072 bytes.

This suggests my BH6 rev. 1.01 uses a 128 KB BIOS chip, so the BH6_SS.BIN image is too large and cannot be flashed.

There are known cases where a motherboard's later BIOS required replacing the EEPROM with a larger one (one being the Epox EP-MVP3G-M) - check to make sure, but this could be one of those cases.

@Martinspl:

There must be something wrong with your backup, because you said the board has a Winbond W29C020P-90 and this definitely is a 256k / 2 MBit Flashrom - so you shouldn't have a problem to flash the latest version!

BTW instead of using AWDFLASH v8.99 try UniFlash 1.40 / 1.47re.09 / v2.00.SPI.RC03 - they are available from my Motherboard BIOS Update/Flash Utilities page -> https://soggi.org/motherboards/bios-update-fl … h-utilities.htm.

Repo Man11 wrote on 2026-05-15, 17:09:

There are known cases where a motherboard's later BIOS required replacing the EEPROM with a larger one (one being the Epox EP-MVP3G-M) - check to make sure, but this could be one of those cases.

I know this for ECS Elitegroup, but this isn't the case here - just checked the BIN file sizes of all earlier ABIT BH6 V1.0x BIOS versions.

kind regards
soggi

Just wanna add on that with my own BH6 I had to use UniFlash 1.40 over awdflash because the latter kept giving me a write-protected error despite there being no jumper or BIOS setting for that. UniFlash worked without problem.

I just managed to update the BIOS to a newer version using UniFlash 1.40. I had a feeling it would be best to start with the oldest version first, and it worked perfectly.
Thanks for your help!

Now I have to deal with the optical drives. As I mentioned earlier, I tried different jumper settings, IDE cables, and both IDE channels, but the BIOS still does not detect any of the drives.

I tested the following models:
Lite-On LTD-122 DVD-ROM (October 2000)
Lite-On LTR-40125S CD-RW (June 2002)
Lite-On DH-20A4P DVD±RW (September 2007)

Maybe the BH6 just doesn't like Lite-On drives, or these models are simply too "modern" for it.

Martinespl wrote on 2026-05-16, 19:00:

I just managed to update the BIOS to a newer version using UniFlash 1.40. I had a feeling it would be best to start with the oldest version first, and it worked perfectly.
Thanks for your help!

You're welcome! UniFlash 1.40 is THE flash tool to use with boards up to PIII and early Athlon boards - for later socket A, 423, 478 boards and higher you need version 1.47re.09 or v2.00.SPI.RC03.

Martinespl wrote on 2026-05-16, 19:17:

Now I have to deal with the optical drives. As I mentioned earlier, I tried different jumper settings, IDE cables, and both IDE channels, but the BIOS still does not detect any of the drives.

I guess you know how to do that correctly and you have tried one ODD at the end of the IDE cable jumpered as Master?

IDE cable config:
[0]============[1]====[2]

Where "0" means "Motherboard" (IDE1, not IDE0), "1" -> "not connected" and "2" -> ODD jumpered as Master. Additionally get into the BIOS and try pressing "Enter" when being on IDE detection.

kind regards
soggi

I do see some posts on old ABit support forums relating to detection problems, but not specific to Lite-On (other brands are also involved). Some suggestions are...

try a brand new coin cell battery

set detection to 'Auto'

don't have drives set to slave on a channel without a master

...I'll keep looking meantime for other suggested fixes

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on 2026-05-16, 20:11:

set detection to 'Auto'

Yeeess...forget that - this was the solution I also had for such problems many years ago, I think.

kind regards
soggi

I connected the IDE cable and jumper settings correctly, although I also tried various other configurations. Fortunately, setting the drive detection to "AUTO" solved the problem, and now the computer detects both optical drives.
Now the next step is installing MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 95.

Thx!