10gig HDD not recognised on socket 7 MotherBoard

[Carol63]

I have a 10gig Seagate HDD and a socket 7 motherboard. The PC (I assume the BIOS) is not recognising that the HDD is 10gig, only comes up as 2gig. Even in windows98SE it is only 2gig.
I have tried using Seagates Disk Wizard but it is not giving me the options I require to change the HDD.
I have tried to manually change the HDD type in the BIOS but it wont let me.
Do I need to install bios upgrade software?
Hope someone can help.

Ta
Carol

 

[johnodq]

Check the mode of the drive in the BIOS, it will need to be LBA mode. A bios upgrade might be needed but it is unlikely that it's the problem. ---------------
Johnodq
---------------
Please let me know if the advice I give is of help.
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Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Carol63]

Johnodq

the mode of the HDD is set to LBA in the BIOS.

thanks for the reply

Carol

 

[cdogg]

Carol,
Socket 7 mobos date back to the original pentium. Back in those days, 2GB was the first barrier that BIOS's often saw, especially on the early Intel chipsets. It wasn't until the Pentium 200 w/MMX came out with Win95 B (OSR version 2) that they corrected this issue.

However, you should be able to download a BIOS upgrade that will lift this barrier to at least 7.8GB, which was the second barrier discovered. I'm not sure if Intel bothered to lift it further. It's been years since I've looked for an upgrade on the socket 7.


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[cdogg]

Just one small correction...

The BIOS is not necessarily designed by Intel. If it's not on their site, check the pc vendor's site as well (i.e. IBM, Gateway, etc.).


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[wolluf]

Carol,

Do you know what motherboard you have. As mentioned, you will need a bios upgrade (if one is available) to be able to see more of that drive. And best place is often mobo manufacturer's site
Other alternatives are overlay software from the drive manufacturer's site - but that nearly always causes problems later, or buy a new controller card.

Cdogg - fyi, lots of socket 7 boards support > 8GB

 

[cdogg]

wolluf,
Thanks, I was pretty sure that later chipsets with the socket 7 wouldn't have either barrier (2GB or 8GB). However, I had an "original" Pentium 166 from IBM. It was the good old Aptiva before MMX was even available. Before I got rid of that system, it had the 8GB barrier and at the time there wasn't a BIOS upgrade that could save it!

Anyway, I know there are tons of AMD K6-2 processors that are able to work with more than 8GB.

Oh well, nice flashback![tab]


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[Carol63]

Thanks to all for your responses.
I ended up using a piece of software from Seagate called Disk Manager after i converted the FAT to FAT32.
The Disk manager software recognised the 10gig and then formated the HDD. I then reloaded WIN98SE and away it went. Recognised at 9.3gig which i am very happy with.

Carol