ami bios does not recongize all of my hard drive

[andy232]

I tried MaxBlast and it did not even see the hard drive. I think the problem is that it is hooked up to a PROMISE UDMA/33 controller (the manufacturer did it, must not have been enough room). The only thing that will see it is MAXDIAG, and that is when I look at PROMISE PRIMARY vs MOTHERBOARD PRIMARY hard drive. I'm trying to figure out how to make MAXBLAST look at the PROMISE card first. Otherwise the drive works fine, it is the only one I am using. Thanks for your fast replies. I appreciate it.

[Pure Gold]

What OP SYS are you using? If your OP SYS doesn't support FAT32 or any other modern file system, then you're only gonna see 8.4Gb of it anyway. The rest will be unusable until such a time you upgrade.

[jokostel]

go check on promise's website...
www.promise.com (http://www.promise.com)
you should find flash updates for the controller and new drivers for it...

[andy232]

I have a Gateway PC with AMI BIOS version 1.00.01.DT0T that I tried installing a 20 GB Maxtor HD in. The problem is that the only 8 GBs of the drive is recongized. Gateway has no BIOS updates for that version, and changing the BIOS modes (eg LBA) or adjusting the number of cylinders does not help. Can anyone give me some advice to fix this please? Thanks.

[Nathan]

If you can't get a update for the BIOS, then I believe you will have to make due with the 8GB size. I believe there are software programs that will let it see more, but they can cause major problems sometimes too.

[CMonster]

I think one choice might be to use the Maxblast software that came with your drive - if it didn't come with your drive you can download from Maxtor.
http://www.maxtor.com/maxblast

[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 01-09-2000).]

[Squirrel]

Try going onto Maxtor site and downloading a firmware update for the drive that forces it to only post itself as a UDMA/33 drive, I've had major problems with Maxtor drives with my Bios, the BIOS will try to run at UDMA/66 even though it's only maxed to 33.

Good luck

[andy232]

The operating system I use is dual-boot 95/NT 4.0. I haven't tried to see what happens in NT, I'm a little nervous about that. I tried to look at Promise for a BIOS update, but my controller is a UDMA/33 so there is none. Maxtor is no help either, I sent them a question to there tech support line, and they basically told me that it is the fact I have a controller card that is too old that I can't see all 20 GB. Thanks for your idea though, I hadn't tried all of them before so I'm a little bit farther along.

[Mattyb]

Do you have the latest update of Windows 95. The earliest version wouldn't detect all of your hard drive, and you had to partition the hard drive if it was over a certain size. Check into downloading the newest update and enable fat32 this would help. What model (Gateway2000) do you have? You can download newest bios for system at http://www.gateway2000.com/support/product/drivers/dtindex.shtml . If you don't know how to flash bios check out http://www.tyan.com/support/html/bios_support.html , even though you don't have a tyan board, this tells you how to flash your AMI bios. Good luck!

Mattyb

Mattyb

[This message has been edited by Mattyb (edited 01-15-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Mattyb (edited 01-15-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Mattyb (edited 01-15-2000).]