big hardisk identification

bendi

Hi,
I am trying to install 20 giga h.d in a Pentium 2 233 with 128 memory.
The problem is that when I try to load the o/s from I get the message can't find o.s.
I checked the bios and it has a 8 gigabyte limitation concerning h.d
I manually changed the settings for the specific h.d but it still doesn't load the o.s
What else can I try? Is there a special bios update for this issue?
BIOS Type Phoenix version 4A4LL0X0.86A.0012.P02
Mother board name Intel Atlanta AL440LX
Mother board chip set Intel Natoma 82440LX
Pentium 2 233
Memory 128 sdram
Thanks,
Bendi

Enverex

Basically no, that machine is too old to really do anything with. Drives normally have a jumper on the back to limit them to 30 or 40GB (can't remember) but that still won't help. There won't be an update to support drives anywhere near this size on that machine as the controler most likely won't be able to cope regardless.

profdlp

Tell me the exact brand, model#, and revision of the board, plus the brand and model# of the HD.

If there is no BIOS update for your board there are still two possibilities to get around your problem:

The first is to buy an add-on IDE Controller card. The one in the link is a card I've used with great success in several different systems. There are cheaper ones available which ought to do the trick, too.

The second option is to use drive overlay software for your Hard Drive. It basically inserts itself into the process after the BIOS but before your OS starts to load, allowing you to use the drive. The reason I asked about the brand is that you can probably download it at no charge from the HD manufacturer.

drasnor

That's really weird, my IBM (Intel Pentium 1 MMX 233MHz, Intel Triton i430VX chipset) can work with anything up to 127GB as long as the BIOS is set to auto-detect the drive.

-drasnor