K7S5A M/B & 160 GB H/D

[Holbrook]

I have just installed a Maxtor 160GB HD and (as I suspected) the Bios only sees 128GB. I have been on the ECS site but there is no Bios update for this. I have found a Cheepoman bios but I am not sure about using this. Also I am confused about flashing - used to do it using DOS but am now using Win2000 and not possible to use DOS. Is there a guide on this? Can anyone help?:confused:

[MJCfromCT]

http://www.ecsusa.com/downloads/flashAMI.html

There is the guide as to how to flash your mobo.

Looking at ECS's website, it appears there are several version of your mobo out there. I suggest you go to www.ecsusa.com and search for your specific motherboard revision, and download the latest BIOS file for it.

[ukulele]

Why bother? Just partition the drive into two.

[MJCfromCT]

ukulele brings up another, probably simpler workaround...go into disk management and format the unpartitioned space on your drive if you want to skip the BIOS update...

[sm8000]

Which version of the K7S5A is this? v.1, v.3, or v.5 (Pro)?

www.ecsusa.com has BIOS downloads for all those models.

Bear in mind that the latest BIOS is at the bottom of the page there.

[Holbrook]

Thanks for all your replies. The M/B is a v3.1 which does not show on the ECSUSA site but does on the Global. I agree that there are Bios updates available but none of them mention the 128GB limitation so I was not sure if any of the updates sorted the problem. Also I am still confused about flashing as in the instructions for the flash utility they say run from DOS with a separate note (in red) saying Win2000 cannot support DOS! I eventually found that Maxtor have a Large disk support patch for windows 2000 on their site. After running this, Windows can see 152.66 GB but I notice that the Bios still reports 137.4.
I am now slightly better off but more confused!
Note I have used 2 partitions for the disk but this did not increas the overall available space.
Should I reflash with the latest Bios?
Should I use a third party Bios (Cheepoman) which does refer to a fix for large disks?
If I reflash - will the reflash utility work OK with Windows 2000?

[ukulele]

Why are you loosing sleep over this? What difference does it make if you just make another drive? If I had a 160GB drive it would be formatted into three or four. 160 GB is too hard to manage as one drive anyway.

[BipolarBill]

152GB is about right for a 160GB drive due to losses in translation from binary math. If it works, it's fine.

If it's making you crazy, pick up a Promise Ultra133 card.

[sm8000]

Go ahead and update the board to the latest BIOS. Don't worry about Windows 2000 not supporting DOS, that just means you'll need to make a DOS boot disk (Win98 is a good choice) from www.bootdisk.com (WinXP has a built-in DOS bootdisk maker, but 2000 doesn't, hence the message). The reflash utility will work fine with your system regardless of what OS is installed because it is running under a different OS: DOS.

[Johnny Fist]

Those Promise cards are nice if you plan on filling that tower up with hard drives, too.