BIOS Question

[cloutty]

Hi Folks,
I have a supermicro SUPER P4SBA, 1.6gb pentium 4, Tornado geforce 2 64mb, 512mb Pc-133 SDRAM, Creative 8432e CDR/W, Toshibe DVD ROM, Scan case with 2 fans.A 20gb disk and a 40Gb Disk.

My 20gb disk is being seen as a 20 Gb disk in the Bios but in the o/s (XP pro) it is only seen as 8.44Gb. I am assuming I need to update the BIOS but, I have tried and followed the following instructions and the flash updte does nort start (I have the Award Bios).

This is what I followed:

Q: How do I flash BIOS for my board?


**Before flash BIOS...

i. Download the BIOS zip file form our website HERE based on the motherboard you have.

ii. Unzip the zip file into a blank floppy disk. Please read the readme.txt since it may contain important instructions.

iii. Prepare a Win98 bootable floppy disk. You can download one at www.bootdisk.com

Award:

a. To flash BIOS:

i. Boot up the system that you want to flash its BIOS from a Win98 boot disk.

ii. Type A:\>awdflash [BIOS filename.bin] /py/wb/cd/sn/cc/r

iii. System will flash BIOS from here, and reboot once it finishes.

b. To recover BIOS:

i. Insert the floppy disk that contains a BIOS file and awdflash utility into floppy drive.

ii. Power on the system and at the same time press Alt + F2 until the system brings up Award flash utility.

iii. Remove BIOS disk when done and reboot the system.





Can anyone confirm first I need to upgrade abd it is not an unrelated issue and secondly how to do it.

Thanks

ClouttyAward: This is what I followed:

[Strawbs]

since the BIOS recognises the correct drive size, I would suggest the problem is possibly an incorrect partition size.

XP gives the option during setup to partition the full drive or a smaller section of it. you may have inadvertently selected a smaller partition and in that event NOT formatted the full drive.

A disk management tool such as Powerquest's Patition Magic 7/8 would be able to resize the partition to take advantage of the full drive properties, or create extra partitions for your back-ups (as I have), without losing your data.

You could simply try to re-install XP and use the option to resize the partition during set-up, but if do resize, you would lose any data on the drive.

[cloutty]

Hi Strawbs,
Thanks for the advice but, I have partition magic 8 and it too only sees the drive as 8.44Gb. When installing XP it said select maximujm size of 8.44Gb and would not let me go any higher. I tried to increase it but that was the max. The Bios clearly says it is a 20 Gb drive and the model number backs this up. Any ideas as this has me stumped.

Cloutty

[cloutty]

Just for the record this is the drive:

Barracuda ATA IV

Model Number:ST320011A
Capacity:20 GB
Speed:7200 rpm
Seek time:9 ms avg
Interface:Ultra ATA/100

[Strawbs]

I still doubt this a BIOS issue! If this is a back-up drive, have windows format it from "My Computer" properties.

The only other possible solution I can think of is Jumper settings! check the settings and try swapping them around.

Sorry I can't be of more help.

[mrrobotto]

Is this a full version of XP or an upgrade and what file system are you using?

[Sterling_Aug]

It sounds like you are using FAT16 instead of FAT32 for the partition type.

Use partition Magic 8 to convert the drive and then all 20GB should be seen by XP.

[mrrobotto]

Read through this it might help you out. http://support.microsoft.com/default...n-us;Q313348#5

[cloutty]

The disk is my O/S disk and it had an NTFS file system, I have used Partition Magic 8 to convert to FAT32 and it still only shows up as an 8.44GB disk.
New install of XP pro & not an upgrade.

This really has me stumped any more ideas lads ?

Cloutty

[mrrobotto]

Did the Microsoft article I provided you with help you any?

[cloutty]

Iand run fdisk I can create an extended dos partition and then a logical drive fro the rest of the drive but, then XP refuses to boot until I reverse the process and delete it again.



Cloutty

[mrrobotto]

Originally posted by cloutty
Iand run fdisk I can create an extended dos partition and then a logical drive fro the rest of the drive but, then XP refuses to boot until I reverse the process and delete it again.



Cloutty

Did you read the Microsoft article

[mtnbiker]

I agree with Strawbs - If the BIOS sees the proper HD size and even gives the model number, then the BIOS is doing its job. Upgrade of BIOS unnecessary for this purpose.

When I installed XP I was really surprised to see any option other than NTFS. Anything is possible and it never hurts to double check. Your OS seems to be showing a very specific file system barrier. When you right click on that HD and get properties, if it shows NTFS or FAT 32 I'd be real surprised.

But I'm not an expert and anything beyond that is over my head, hope it helps.

[bluemoon]

There is a remote possibility that it could be a controller issue.Have you installed you mother board driver.?
BTW,what do yu see using fdisk.?

EDIT: Are the hdd paremeters in your cmos set to auto?It will give you trouble if the block mode (or something like that) is set wrong.So, better set everything to auto.

[lptech]

cloutty-

Are you sure that the jumper(s) on the HDDs are set correctly? You might have it setup in a conflicting manner that both HDDs are not correctly being recognized by the OS! What brands are the HDDs? Is the jumper on both drives set to Cable Select? Are they on the same IDE cable or on separate IDE cables? Are you using the correct cable for your HDDs (i.e.- 40wire vs. 80wire IDE cable)? Those are just some of the possibilities affecting your setup!

Can you give us info on HDD brand names and jumper settings and cable setup? It would help us much in figuring a way to troubleshoot your current problem.