Maybe this will be of interest to you:

https://vswitchzero.com/ms6160/

Check the AMIBCP thread. It's the 486-era ones that have no official tools out there; for you Pentium Pro/II era BIOS, there may well be an amibcp for it.

How big of a hard drive are you trying to use ?
According to MSI TW archive for ms-6111: AMI BIOS Version Ver 1.4 Update date 1998-04-16
- Added support for over 8.5GB IDE hard disks. (and fixed some stuff).

https://web.archive.org/web/20011224153839/ht … p?model=MS-6111

Horun wrote on 2025-04-29, 20:07:

How big of a hard drive are you trying to use ? According to MSI TW archive for ms-6111: AMI BIOS Version Ver 1.4 Update date 1 […]
Show full quote

How big of a hard drive are you trying to use ?
According to MSI TW archive for ms-6111: AMI BIOS Version Ver 1.4 Update date 1998-04-16
- Added support for over 8.5GB IDE hard disks. (and fixed some stuff).

https://web.archive.org/web/20011224153839/ht … p?model=MS-6111

I'm currently using a promise raid controller and I have a 120gb hdd installed. I would really like to modify the bios so I can use the raid controller in another machine. It's been a few years since I messed with this pc but I think I was able to install either a 10gb or 20gb hdd but anything bigger wouldn't work.

byte_76 wrote on 2025-04-29, 19:08:

Maybe this will be of interest to you:

https://vswitchzero.com/ms6160/

yeah he was able to mod the ami bios but he was not able to add more than 37gb hdd limit. I wish he wrote more about the award bios he used on that board, I know he said he had problems with it but I wonder if it had support for larger drives? Also wonder if MSI ever made an award bios for my ms-6111, all i can find are ami.

jakethompson1 wrote on 2025-04-29, 19:42:

Check the AMIBCP thread. It's the 486-era ones that have no official tools out there; for you Pentium Pro/II era BIOS, there may well be an amibcp for it.

I downloaded a couple versions but when i try to load the ROM it gives the incompatible ROM error. Maybe i need to find a version older than 2.25b ???

Best way is to get an EEPROM flashing tool and flash the BIOS you want to try onto another EEPROM of the same type.

Also need to make sure the EEPROM your board has, has enough capacity for the AWARD BIOS.

You will want a second EEPROM either way because you have a good chance of no-boot flashing a different boards BIOS.

If you really want to try it without a backup, you can probably use Uniflash.

Guessing there will also be a force flash option you would have to use.

There are some possible Award versions for i440LX + W977TF bare LX boards that are from 12/1999 or later (when greater than 32Gb hd support came out).
With a eeprom programmer one could try the Award from these: ABit AB-LX6, FIC VL-601 Rev 1.1, Gigabyte GA-686BLX, Gigabyte GA-686LX3, just to name a few....

Just to state the obvious, you've already considered disk overlay software and just don't want to use it?

jakethompson1 wrote on Yesterday, 01:19:

Just to state the obvious, you've already considered disk overlay software and just don't want to use it?

Yeah, I would prefer to mod the bios to support the larger drives. I'm using a promise raid controller right now and that is adding a bit of time every time I reboot the machine. It would be really nice If the board just supported the larger drives.

Horun wrote on Yesterday, 01:02:

There are some possible Award versions for i440LX + W977TF bare LX boards that are from 12/1999 or later (when greater than 32Gb hd support came out).
With a eeprom programmer one could try the Award from these: ABit AB-LX6, FIC VL-601 Rev 1.1, Gigabyte GA-686BLX, Gigabyte GA-686LX3, just to name a few....

If flashing a bios from a different vendor, would information about my motherboard still show up in post? I have an old tl866ii plus programmer that I can manually flash the bios with. I just never attempted flashing a bios from a different board before.

Horun wrote on Yesterday, 01:02:

There are some possible Award versions for i440LX + W977TF bare LX boards that are from 12/1999 or later (when greater than 32Gb hd support came out).
With a eeprom programmer one could try the Award from these: ABit AB-LX6, FIC VL-601 Rev 1.1, Gigabyte GA-686BLX, Gigabyte GA-686LX3, just to name a few....

I looked around for msi motherboards that also used the 440lx chipset, I found this one https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/msi-ms-6117-lx6#bios , it also had a patched bios that supported 128gb hdd's and it was an award bios. I removed the eeprom and flashed the bios manually with my programmer, testing the new bios I just got a black screen. I flashed the original AMI bios back manually with the programmer, and the system is booting again. I'm not sure if it's possible to use a bios from another motherboard.

lilkuz2005 wrote on Yesterday, 10:44:

Horun wrote on Yesterday, 01:02:

There are some possible Award versions for i440LX + W977TF bare LX boards that are from 12/1999 or later (when greater than 32Gb hd support came out).
With a eeprom programmer one could try the Award from these: ABit AB-LX6, FIC VL-601 Rev 1.1, Gigabyte GA-686BLX, Gigabyte GA-686LX3, just to name a few....

If flashing a bios from a different vendor, would information about my motherboard still show up in post? I have an old tl866ii plus programmer that I can manually flash the bios with. I just never attempted flashing a bios from a different board before.

The POST string is hardcoded in the BIOS binary

lilkuz2005 wrote on 2025-04-29, 18:50:

Hey guys, I got an old slot 1 motherboard made by MicroStar its the MS-6111 using the 440LX chipset. I flashed the latest bios to the motherboard in hopes that it would support larger HDD's but it didn't. I saw a video by Necroware on youtube about modding the old AWARD bios's with a tool named bios patcher. My motherboard uses an AMIBIOS so I can't use that tool. I have been looking for something similar that supports AMI bios's. Does anyone know of any tools that can modify old AMI bios's?

Why to not patch AMI ? As I understood the BIOS Patcher is universal and it also supports AMI bioses.
Try to patch the older versions because it didin't find any 32GB problem in the latest one (see the spoiler).
But maybe it was fixed in the newer version of the BIOS Patcher:
https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fil … 241&menustate=0

Quirk in early LBA 28bit implementation (pre 2000) is a max 33Gb limit, when it should work up to 127Gb iirc. Not sure if the bios patcher can detect diff between early buggy and good LBA 28bit.
Patching an older BIOS is a good idea !
MSI ms-6117 has no multiplier jumpers (bios set) where the ms-6111 has jumpers (switches) so no surprised that boards bios does not work....

Roman555 wrote on Yesterday, 14:27:

Why to not patch AMI ? As I understood the BIOS Patcher is universal and it also supports AMI bioses. Try to patch the older ver […]
Show full quote

lilkuz2005 wrote on 2025-04-29, 18:50:

Hey guys, I got an old slot 1 motherboard made by MicroStar its the MS-6111 using the 440LX chipset. I flashed the latest bios to the motherboard in hopes that it would support larger HDD's but it didn't. I saw a video by Necroware on youtube about modding the old AWARD bios's with a tool named bios patcher. My motherboard uses an AMIBIOS so I can't use that tool. I have been looking for something similar that supports AMI bios's. Does anyone know of any tools that can modify old AMI bios's?

Why to not patch AMI ? As I understood the BIOS Patcher is universal and it also supports AMI bioses.
Try to patch the older versions because it didin't find any 32GB problem in the latest one (see the spoiler).
But maybe it was fixed in the newer version of the BIOS Patcher:
https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fil … 241&menustate=0

Spoiler

https://www.rom.by/comment/18105

microstar.ru/ssl/php/upload/bios_files/a6111v18.exe

BIOS Patcher ver. 6.00.alpha_10. |for Award/Phoenix & AMI bioses|
Attention! Advanced qualification is required!

Found 1Mbit AMI BIOS!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

4. 32Gb-problem : not found.

Tweak options addinng:

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

if you can`t see all messages - choose 80x50 mode or run with ">report.txt".
(c)2002-2004 apple_rom, www.ROM.by

I thought bios patcher was just for award bios's. I had no idea. I ran the version you shared in your post against my bios v18 and got this output:

Ok I ran the patcher under Xp 32bit on the v1.7 and the v1.8 bios from TRW. Both times say fixed 32Gb problem and 65Gb problem.
Attached the fixed v1.8 rom file. If you try it be sure to rename A611MS18_fixed.ROM to A611MS18.ROM to keep the 8.3 file naming if you choose to use the AMIFL634.COM to flash.
Suggest you use your eeprom flasher to flash it.....

Horun wrote on Yesterday, 16:20:

Ok I ran the patcher under Xp 32bit on the v1.7 and the v1.8 bios from TRW. Both times say fixed 32Gb problem and 65Gb problem. […]
Show full quote

Ok I ran the patcher under Xp 32bit on the v1.7 and the v1.8 bios from TRW. Both times say fixed 32Gb problem and 65Gb problem.
Attached the fixed v1.8 rom file. If you try it be sure to rename A611MS18_fixed.ROM to A611MS18.ROM to keep the 8.3 file naming if you choose to use the AMIFL634.COM to flash.
Suggest you use your eeprom flasher to flash it.....

Spoiler

BIOS Patcher ver. 6.00.alpha_15. |for Award/Phoenix & AMI bioses|
Attention! Advanced qualification is required!

Found 1Mbit AMI BIOS (core 0627) !

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

4. 32Gb-problem : -> fixed.
7. 65Gb-problem (1-st step) : -> fixed.
8. 65Gb-problem (2-nd step) : -> fixed.

Tweak options addinng:

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

!! Module Manipulation Successful !!

if you can`t see all messages - choose 80x50 mode or run with ">report.txt".
(c)2002-2004 apple_rom, www.ROM.by
(c)2006 Angel07, www.cgi-scripts.info

That worked, I flashed the bios with my programmer, removed the promise raid controller and connected the ide cable to the motherboard, in the bios auto detect drives wasn't working correctly, I had to manually set the cylinders heads and sectors but saving the settings and rebooting and its working. Thanks for all the help. I appreciate it.

lilkuz2005 wrote on Yesterday, 16:56:

Horun wrote on Yesterday, 16:20:

Ok I ran the patcher under Xp 32bit on the v1.7 and the v1.8 bios from TRW. Both times say fixed 32Gb problem and 65Gb problem.
Attached the fixed v1.8 rom file. If you try it be sure to rename A611MS18_fixed.ROM to A611MS18.ROM to keep the 8.3 file naming if you choose to use the AMIFL634.COM to flash.
Suggest you use your eeprom flasher to flash it.....

That worked, I flashed the bios with my programmer, removed the promise raid controller and connected the ide cable to the motherboard, in the bios auto detect drives wasn't working correctly, I had to manually set the cylinders heads and sectors but saving the settings and rebooting and its working. Thanks for all the help. I appreciate it.

Great !!! Yes some times older bios have issues proper detecting the HD parms on large drives on "patched" bios. Be sure to write down some notes on what you have done, for future record 😀
Roman555 and douglar deserves the credit 😁

Roman555 wrote on Yesterday, 14:27:

Try to patch the older versions because it didin't find any 32GB problem in the latest one (see the spoiler).
But maybe it was fixed in the newer version of the BIOS Patcher:
https://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fil … 241&menustate=0

Yep ! Thanks, the newer version seemed to fix the 33Gb/64Gb limit so should be ok to 120Gb