Old mobo, New HDD

[maje87c]

I'm putting a new hard drive in an old comp, what should I do if the BIOS won't recognize the HDD?

Mobo- VB-601-V

I'm gonna check and make sure I have the jumpers right, but if that doesn't work, where can I find an updated BIOS for it?

[deadkenny]

Even if the new drive isn't recognized, it might not be a BIOS issue. I would suggest you do some research first. It's possible that an older BIOS will not recognize a larger drive. It's also possible that an older BIOS will not autodetect, and you will have to specify the drive format.

[muchmark]

SysOpt Review of the VB-601-V (http://www.sysopt.com/reviews/vb601-v/)

[Bovon]

The board is not that old...the slot 1 cpu technology is not being supported very well today, but if the system is running good, it certainly is worth a hard drive upgrade.

FIC ( http://www.fica.com/ ) is pretty good about upgrading the bios software for their boards for a few years anyway.

http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/faq/pre/faqs01VB-601-V.htm
FAQs at FIC for your VB-601-V

http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/bios65a1.html?model_id=15
Several bios upgrades here, dosn't say anything about larger HDD support.

First Look at the VB-601-V. September 22, 1998.
This was found by a Google search using just VB-601-V, but it had a dead link to FIC...but it gives a date that the board came out...1998.

http://www.active-hardware.com/english/reviews/mainboard/fic-vb-601v.htm
This is a pretty good site with an early review for your board. You may find some helpfull information here.

You can always use a PCI controller card for a larger hard drive if you do not want to flash the bios, or there is no bios file to allow the later hard drives to CMOS. Even if the bios can be flashed to recognise a large hard drive, the motherboard IDE controllers are still gonna be ATA33...so, the newer, faster hard drives will perform poorly. Again...the cure to that would be a Promise ATA100 or 133 controller card.

[maje87c]

I don't have any money. At all. So buying something is out of the question. Would i need an fdd to flash the bios?

[Bovon]

The normal way to flash the bios is by using a Win95/98/Me boot disk and a floppy drive. I have read about flashing the bios from within Windows, but know nothing about how its done, or how successfull this type of flashing may be.

Remember, if you do not flash the bios correctly the first time, you may have a dead motherboard with no way to recover it. So, take your time, read here and ask questions. Be very sure you know what you are doing and what to expect