That is likely BIOS limitation/bug .

Your board board is old enough that its BIOS will likely not be able to support anything over 4.2GB (or possibly 8.4GB) without either a BIOS update, patching the BIOS (if possible), an XT-IDE BIOS, a PCI IDE/SATA controller with a BIOS that can handle the drive size or a software solution called a dynamic drive overlay (DDO) .

See
https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/res … ve_barriers.htm
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/bioslim.htm

What model is the board ?

darry wrote on 2020-06-24, 22:54:

That is likely BIOS limitation/bug . […]
Show full quote

That is likely BIOS limitation/bug .

Your board board is old enough that its BIOS will likely not be able to support anything over 4.2GB (or possibly 8.4GB) without either a BIOS update, patching the BIOS (if possible), an XT-IDE BIOS, a PCI IDE/SATA controller with a BIOS that can handle the drive size or a software solution called a dynamic drive overlay (DDO) .

See
https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/res … ve_barriers.htm
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/bioslim.htm

What model is the board ?

Well, that seems to be bad news for me, I guess. The board is a TMC AI5TT version 1.2, nothing fancy at all but it works well. The latest BIOS version is from February 1998, so to me it seems strange that it is limited to 4.2GB, since by then that was already a normal size IIRC.

aha2940 wrote on 2020-06-25, 04:57:

darry wrote on 2020-06-24, 22:54:

That is likely BIOS limitation/bug . […]
Show full quote

That is likely BIOS limitation/bug .

Your board board is old enough that its BIOS will likely not be able to support anything over 4.2GB (or possibly 8.4GB) without either a BIOS update, patching the BIOS (if possible), an XT-IDE BIOS, a PCI IDE/SATA controller with a BIOS that can handle the drive size or a software solution called a dynamic drive overlay (DDO) .

See
https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/res … ve_barriers.htm
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/bioslim.htm

What model is the board ?

Well, that seems to be bad news for me, I guess. The board is a TMC AI5TT version 1.2, nothing fancy at all but it works well. The latest BIOS version is from February 1998, so to me it seems strange that it is limited to 4.2GB, since by then that was already a normal size IIRC.

There is an untested patched version of a BIOS for one of the AI5TT variants (there are at least 2) that purportedly allows drives up to 127GB .

Please post your BIOS ID string (starting with 2A59) so I can confirm which version you have . You will see the string at boot .

EDIT : Please post the BIOS message displayed. It should be either AI5TT-Q6-0625 (Winbond 977) or AI5TT-Q6D-0625 (Winbond 977) .
Apparently some moron at whoever designed this board thought it would be a good idea to have two different board types with apparently incompatible BIOSes use the same BIOS ID (2A59IM2CC-00) .

Even if the string matches the one in the patched BIOS, there is no absolute guarantee the BIOS will work at all (PC may not boot). So trying this patched BIOS (or any other patched that could be generated by the likes of BIOS Patcher) should only be attempted if you have the means to flash back a known good BIOS, either by hot-flashing or with an EEPROM programmer .

Wikipedia hints at the fact that 1024x128x63x512=4,227,858,432 bytes.
That 128 is the head number and it's supposed to be 255 and not 128. It could be that the Award bios is treating the head number as a signed byte rather than unsigned which cuts the usual limit (approximately) in half.
What OS are you running? Are you familiar with OnTrack and similar software already, where the boot process replaces the BIOS with another one without this limit?
You could also put in an ISA card with the XT-IDE BIOS. Your machine should be recent enough that it would shadow the BIOS so as to not be slow, I think.

darry wrote on 2020-06-25, 06:18:

There is an untested patched version of a BIOS for one of the AI5TT variants (there are at least 2) that purportedly allows d […]
Show full quote

aha2940 wrote on 2020-06-25, 04:57:

darry wrote on 2020-06-24, 22:54:

That is likely BIOS limitation/bug . […]
Show full quote

That is likely BIOS limitation/bug .

Your board board is old enough that its BIOS will likely not be able to support anything over 4.2GB (or possibly 8.4GB) without either a BIOS update, patching the BIOS (if possible), an XT-IDE BIOS, a PCI IDE/SATA controller with a BIOS that can handle the drive size or a software solution called a dynamic drive overlay (DDO) .

See
https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/res … ve_barriers.htm
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/bioslim.htm

What model is the board ?

Well, that seems to be bad news for me, I guess. The board is a TMC AI5TT version 1.2, nothing fancy at all but it works well. The latest BIOS version is from February 1998, so to me it seems strange that it is limited to 4.2GB, since by then that was already a normal size IIRC.

There is an untested patched version of a BIOS for one of the AI5TT variants (there are at least 2) that purportedly allows drives up to 127GB .

Please post your BIOS ID string (starting with 2A59) so I can confirm which version you have . You will see the string at boot .

EDIT : Please post the BIOS message displayed. It should be either AI5TT-Q6-0625 (Winbond 977) or AI5TT-Q6D-0625 (Winbond 977) .
Apparently some moron at whoever designed this board thought it would be a good idea to have two different board types with apparently incompatible BIOSes use the same BIOS ID (2A59IM2CC-00) .

Even if the string matches the one in the patched BIOS, there is no absolute guarantee the BIOS will work at all (PC may not boot). So trying this patched BIOS (or any other patched that could be generated by the likes of BIOS Patcher) should only be attempted if you have the means to flash back a known good BIOS, either by hot-flashing or with an EEPROM programmer .

Thanks for helping me. I'm attaching pics of the BIOS screen on both BIOS (the original one and a modified one for 128GB drives). As you can see, the original one is from February/98, the modified one seems to be from June/98. I included a full screen because I am not sure of the meaning of all the strings that appear there, but you seem to understand them better. Also notice that the modified BIOS explicitly says it's modified for drives up to 127GB, yet it can't properly recognize a 10GB one.

Any more ideas are appreciated.

aha2940 wrote on 2020-06-26, 23:29:

darry wrote on 2020-06-25, 06:18:

There is an untested patched version of a BIOS for one of the AI5TT variants (there are at least 2) that purportedly allows d […]
Show full quote

aha2940 wrote on 2020-06-25, 04:57:

Well, that seems to be bad news for me, I guess. The board is a TMC AI5TT version 1.2, nothing fancy at all but it works well. The latest BIOS version is from February 1998, so to me it seems strange that it is limited to 4.2GB, since by then that was already a normal size IIRC.

There is an untested patched version of a BIOS for one of the AI5TT variants (there are at least 2) that purportedly allows drives up to 127GB .

Please post your BIOS ID string (starting with 2A59) so I can confirm which version you have . You will see the string at boot .

EDIT : Please post the BIOS message displayed. It should be either AI5TT-Q6-0625 (Winbond 977) or AI5TT-Q6D-0625 (Winbond 977) .
Apparently some moron at whoever designed this board thought it would be a good idea to have two different board types with apparently incompatible BIOSes use the same BIOS ID (2A59IM2CC-00) .

Even if the string matches the one in the patched BIOS, there is no absolute guarantee the BIOS will work at all (PC may not boot). So trying this patched BIOS (or any other patched that could be generated by the likes of BIOS Patcher) should only be attempted if you have the means to flash back a known good BIOS, either by hot-flashing or with an EEPROM programmer .

Thanks for helping me. I'm attaching pics of the BIOS screen on both BIOS (the original one and a modified one for 128GB drives). As you can see, the original one is from February/98, the modified one seems to be from June/98. I included a full screen because I am not sure of the meaning of all the strings that appear there, but you seem to understand them better. Also notice that the modified BIOS explicitly says it's modified for drives up to 127GB, yet it can't properly recognize a 10GB one.

Any more ideas are appreciated.

Well, you seem to be running the modified BIOS I had in mind (that had been run through BIOS Patcher). It was described as untested, so it is not too surprising (though disappointing) that it does not fix the issue . I do not have the skills to modify a BIOS in that way or even determine what is wrong with the existing modification . The simplest 2 solutions would probably be a PCI IDE or SATA disk controller or an XT-IDE option ROM (an a network card, for example) .

EDIT: Did you clear the CMOS after flashing the modded/patched BIOS ?

darry wrote on 2020-06-27, 02:07:

aha2940 wrote on 2020-06-26, 23:29:

darry wrote on 2020-06-25, 06:18:

There is an untested patched version of a BIOS for one of the AI5TT variants (there are at least 2) that purportedly allows d […]
Show full quote

There is an untested patched version of a BIOS for one of the AI5TT variants (there are at least 2) that purportedly allows drives up to 127GB .

Please post your BIOS ID string (starting with 2A59) so I can confirm which version you have . You will see the string at boot .

EDIT : Please post the BIOS message displayed. It should be either AI5TT-Q6-0625 (Winbond 977) or AI5TT-Q6D-0625 (Winbond 977) .
Apparently some moron at whoever designed this board thought it would be a good idea to have two different board types with apparently incompatible BIOSes use the same BIOS ID (2A59IM2CC-00) .

Even if the string matches the one in the patched BIOS, there is no absolute guarantee the BIOS will work at all (PC may not boot). So trying this patched BIOS (or any other patched that could be generated by the likes of BIOS Patcher) should only be attempted if you have the means to flash back a known good BIOS, either by hot-flashing or with an EEPROM programmer .

Thanks for helping me. I'm attaching pics of the BIOS screen on both BIOS (the original one and a modified one for 128GB drives). As you can see, the original one is from February/98, the modified one seems to be from June/98. I included a full screen because I am not sure of the meaning of all the strings that appear there, but you seem to understand them better. Also notice that the modified BIOS explicitly says it's modified for drives up to 127GB, yet it can't properly recognize a 10GB one.

Any more ideas are appreciated.

Well, you seem to be running the modified BIOS I had in mind (that had been run through BIOS Patcher). It was described as untested, so it is not too surprising (though disappointing) that it does not fix the issue . I do not have the skills to modify a BIOS in that way or even determine what is wrong with the existing modification . The simplest 2 solutions would probably be a PCI IDE or SATA disk controller or an XT-IDE option ROM (an a network card, for example) .

EDIT: Did you clear the CMOS after flashing the modded/patched BIOS ?

Good information there. I did reset the BIOS settings to their defaults between BIOS changes, but did not use the reset jumper on the board. Might be worth a try. If that doesn't work, I think I can use the 3Com 3c509B card on the machine to use XT-IDE, however I've read and do not really understand how it works: does it replace the motherboard's BIOS? or does it append to it like some SCSI card's BIOS do? will I be able to continue using the 3Com card normally if I use it for XT-IDE?

Thanks!

aha2940 wrote on 2020-06-27, 03:53:

darry wrote on 2020-06-27, 02:07:

aha2940 wrote on 2020-06-26, 23:29:

Thanks for helping me. I'm attaching pics of the BIOS screen on both BIOS (the original one and a modified one for 128GB drives). As you can see, the original one is from February/98, the modified one seems to be from June/98. I included a full screen because I am not sure of the meaning of all the strings that appear there, but you seem to understand them better. Also notice that the modified BIOS explicitly says it's modified for drives up to 127GB, yet it can't properly recognize a 10GB one.

Any more ideas are appreciated.

Well, you seem to be running the modified BIOS I had in mind (that had been run through BIOS Patcher). It was described as untested, so it is not too surprising (though disappointing) that it does not fix the issue . I do not have the skills to modify a BIOS in that way or even determine what is wrong with the existing modification . The simplest 2 solutions would probably be a PCI IDE or SATA disk controller or an XT-IDE option ROM (an a network card, for example) .

EDIT: Did you clear the CMOS after flashing the modded/patched BIOS ?

Good information there. I did reset the BIOS settings to their defaults between BIOS changes, but did not use the reset jumper on the board. Might be worth a try. If that doesn't work, I think I can use the 3Com 3c509B card on the machine to use XT-IDE, however I've read and do not really understand how it works: does it replace the motherboard's BIOS? or does it append to it like some SCSI card's BIOS do? will I be able to continue using the 3Com card normally if I use it for XT-IDE?

Thanks!

XT-IDE will only replace your current BIOS IDE functionality (you set the drives to none in main BIOS and let XT-IDE handle them).
XT-IDE loads similarly to the way a SCSI BIOS would (option ROM) but will only apply to your IDE controllers.
The 3Com network card will continue to function normally as a NIC .

I hope this answers your questions . Feel free to ask more if this is not clear enough (or if anything else pops up) .

I recommend going with the DDO (Direct Drive Overlay) route and can wholeheartedly recommend EZ-Drive v9.09w
It isnt always necessary to go the XT-IDE route if the only problem is the size of the drive in question.

darry wrote on 2020-06-27, 04:02:

XT-IDE will only replace your current BIOS IDE functionality (you set the drives to none in main BIOS and let XT-IDE handle them […]
Show full quote

XT-IDE will only replace your current BIOS IDE functionality (you set the drives to none in main BIOS and let XT-IDE handle them).
XT-IDE loads similarly to the way a SCSI BIOS would (option ROM) but will only apply to your IDE controllers.
The 3Com network card will continue to function normally as a NIC .

I hope this answers your questions . Feel free to ask more if this is not clear enough (or if anything else pops up) .

This does answer my questions, thank you very much. I'll look for the right EPROM to use on my NIC and try.

jaZz_KCS wrote on 2020-06-27, 12:20:

I recommend going with the DDO (Direct Drive Overlay) route and can wholeheartedly recommend EZ-Drive v9.09w
It isnt always necessary to go the XT-IDE route if the only problem is the size of the drive in question.

Thanks for the idea, however it is my understanding that this overlay software will render the drive unusable under other modern PCs (some times I put the drive on a newer PC to copy big stuff faster). Is that correct? also, how would this software work on a dual boot (DOS 6.22/win98) environment?

Before i updated my Bios to get a K6-2 400 running in my 430tx board i thought that I can only put a jumper on my 80gb hdd as 30gb so my system would finally recognize it. Then I heard about the Promise Fastrack controller wich can recognize the full size and speed up the data rate. (Depending on model)
I got my Ultra 100 from Ebay for a few bucks and it runs very well. I set SCSI as the first Boot Option in bios then.

aha2940 wrote on 2020-06-28, 16:17:

jaZz_KCS wrote on 2020-06-27, 12:20:

I recommend going with the DDO (Direct Drive Overlay) route and can wholeheartedly recommend EZ-Drive v9.09w
It isnt always necessary to go the XT-IDE route if the only problem is the size of the drive in question.

Thanks for the idea, however it is my understanding that this overlay software will render the drive unusable under other modern PCs (some times I put the drive on a newer PC to copy big stuff faster). Is that correct? also, how would this software work on a dual boot (DOS 6.22/win98) environment?

I cannot tell anything definitive, albeit I can tell about my experience, as I have used EZ-Drive (and sometimes Ontrack) myself extensively. There will be no problem with Windows 98 for starters, I have used it on many laptops/PCs of the same era when using SD cards as HDD replacements (that were most of the time too big for the BIOS to handle). Never have I encountered any problems. EZ-Drive that is.

When it comes to reading the cards/HDDs with EZ-Drive on modern machines to send stuff over, I had no problems whatsoever up until Win7 (I do not use any Windows past Win7.....yet.) This is only true for EZ-Drive as ppl have reported numerous problems with newer (or only different) machines and OnTrack (Win10 for example) but I have yet to see someone complain about EZ-Drivespecifically in this regard, neither have I tried myself. But I had never any problems connecting said drives/cards with EZ-Drive to a newer machine.

This is the main reason I have favoured EZ-BIOS over Ontrack so far as well as the fact that it has a few other tricks up it's sleeve (telling you in the beginning of the Full Auto Setup whether your BIOS actually needs it, among other things) compared to Ontrack. It does - however - miss one function that OnTrack has, but that I have never missed. OnTrack enables you to boot from CD. But as I said, I have never used that as I always have a spare DATA partition for backup purposes, where a folder with the Win9x install files reside (as in: I install from HDD, always.)
Said install files I have either loaded from CD beforehand or shoved them overby connecting the HDD/card to another, more modern computer, as you described.

Does EZ-Drive support FAT32? I went the OnTrack route because of its support for larger harddrives. If EZ-Drive supports FAT32 and can be accessed on a Windows 10 machine that would be ideal. I recently had to spin up a virtual Inwodws 7 installation just to read data off of my OnTracked SD card

Yes, EZ-Drive supports FAT32. It asks you what OS you plan on using and what FS you want to deploy. I have no clue about accessibility of Win10. Again, I have only ever used Windows up to Win7, where it works. But then again, I would never use the most modern machine to send files over, but always another older, yet more modern one.

Hi again!

Still looking for option on this issue, I found this thread: Re: Adding XT-IDE option ROM to Asus P3B-F BIOS . (coincidentially, made by @darry). And it got me thinking: what would I need to "embed" XT-IDE on the BIOS of my PC? so I tried the quick path: downloaded XT-IDE, got the 12kB file (which AFAIK is the complete one), used AWDBEDIT to add XT-IDE to the BIOS original file, burned it to an EPROM and tested. XT-IDE did not load, but the BIOS booted correcty (as if nothing had been changed) so...any idea what should I do for this to work?

Thanks!

I don't think this brings you the solution but have you ever tried another hard disk drive?

aha2940 wrote on 2020-07-01, 03:21:

Hi again!

Still looking for option on this issue, I found this thread: Re: Adding XT-IDE option ROM to Asus P3B-F BIOS . (coincidentially, made by @darry). And it got me thinking: what would I need to "embed" XT-IDE on the BIOS of my PC? so I tried the quick path: downloaded XT-IDE, got the 12kB file (which AFAIK is the complete one), used AWDBEDIT to add XT-IDE to the BIOS original file, burned it to an EPROM and tested. XT-IDE did not load, but the BIOS booted correcty (as if nothing had been changed) so...any idea what should I do for this to work?

Thanks!

IMPORTANT: You have to run the XT-IDE BIOS file through xtidecfg to generate the proper checksum, or it will be ignored by your motherboard BIOS .
ALSO IMPORTANT : I hope you have the means to recover from a bad flash (ability to hotflash or EEPROM programmer).

If you added it as an ISA option ROM, your BIOS needs to be able to process it as such. The P3B-F BIOS was not capable of doing that, but DenizOezmen was able to patch out the device ID check from the BIOS for PCI option ROMs which allowed load XTIDE in place of the NCR SCSI BIOS PCI option ROM .

Instead of AWDBEDIT, you might want to try adding the XTIDE BIOS with CBROM using the /ISA option . It may work with your motherboard BIOS . Don't forget to run the XTIDE BIOS through xtidecfg first .

darry wrote on 2020-07-01, 04:17:

IMPORTANT: You have to run the XT-IDE BIOS file through xtidecfg to generate the proper checksum, or it will be ignored by your […]
Show full quote

aha2940 wrote on 2020-07-01, 03:21:

Hi again!

Still looking for option on this issue, I found this thread: Re: Adding XT-IDE option ROM to Asus P3B-F BIOS . (coincidentially, made by @darry). And it got me thinking: what would I need to "embed" XT-IDE on the BIOS of my PC? so I tried the quick path: downloaded XT-IDE, got the 12kB file (which AFAIK is the complete one), used AWDBEDIT to add XT-IDE to the BIOS original file, burned it to an EPROM and tested. XT-IDE did not load, but the BIOS booted correcty (as if nothing had been changed) so...any idea what should I do for this to work?

Thanks!

IMPORTANT: You have to run the XT-IDE BIOS file through xtidecfg to generate the proper checksum, or it will be ignored by your motherboard BIOS .
ALSO IMPORTANT : I hope you have the means to recover from a bad flash (ability to hotflash or EEPROM programmer).

If you added it as an ISA option ROM, your BIOS needs to be able to process it as such. The P3B-F BIOS was not capable of doing that, but DenizOezmen was able to patch out the device ID check from the BIOS for PCI option ROMs which allowed load XTIDE in place of the NCR SCSI BIOS PCI option ROM .

Instead of AWDBEDIT, you might want to try adding the XTIDE BIOS with CBROM using the /ISA option . It may work with your motherboard BIOS . Don't forget to run the XTIDE BIOS through xtidecfg first .

Thanks for the tips, I do have a recovery option (several EPROMs and an EPROM writer) so recovery is not an issue at all. When I tested adding xtide to the BIOS, i did not run xtidecfg, just added the plain ide_atl.bin file as it comes out the ZIP file. I'll try again tomorrow configuring it before writing it to the EPROM and see what I get.

GuillermoXT wrote on 2020-07-01, 04:13:

I don't think this brings you the solution but have you ever tried another hard disk drive?

Thanks, however the only real IDE hard drive I currently have is this 10GB one 🙁

aha2940 wrote on 2020-07-01, 04:53:

...
Thanks for the tips, I do have a recovery option (several EPROMs and an EPROM writer) so recovery is not an issue at all.
...

So you can make a patched bios yourself. It's easy.
http://vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=871&menustate=0