Abit AB-BX6 Rev 2.0 with UDMA 33

[gonzilla]

Hi,

I have a friend who has an Abit AB-BX6 Rev 2.0 board with UDMA 33 IDE. He bought a WD Ultra ATA 100 hard drive (not sure size) and installed it in place of the HD that was in the current system. When he boots up, the BIOS doesn't recognize the new HD. Is this normal? For some reason, I thought that the new hard drive would run fine - just at the slower (33) speed.

Thanks.

-Tyler

 

[SESaskDFC]

Howdy:

The ATA100 will also need a 40 pin/80 wire IDE cable.. Did they get one of those also??

Murray

 

[wolluf]

Murray - they don't need 80 wire cable if board only supports ATA33.

Tyler - what's the size of the new drive - and do you know what board supports (there are various size barriers for mobo/bios - most likely problem one here is 32GB). There may be a bios upgrade for the board (to enable support for larger drives), or there may be a limiting jumper setting on drive (to make it appear as 32GB - for situations like this might be). If it is size isse & no bios upgrade, suggest buying a controller card.

PS. He has set jumpers correctly? Has he tried with just new drive or both?

 

[gonzilla]

Hi guys,

Thanks for the reply.

I have a feeling that the HD is larger than 32 GB and I'll ask him that today.

To answer some of your q's:
-It's an AWARD bios - he said he looked for the update and didn't find it.
-He tried the old and new drive and tried them both on a newer motherboard and the only combo that didn't work was the new HD on the old Abit BX6 board.
-I'm pretty sure he has the jumpers set correctly although I wasn't there to look on as he did this.

I'll also check on the limiting jumper setting - but I bet he'd rather not limit the size. As you suggested, if he can't find the update and HD is > 32 GB, I have a Promise Controller card for him to try that supports ATA 100.

The last thing I forgot to mention was that the new HD isn't brand new - ie. he had it in another machine for a few weeks and it has an OS and other data/programs already on it. I know that moving a HD around like that could cause problems, but I think it would still be recognized regardless. So - just to eliminate that possibility, could it be that fact that is keeping it from being recognized?

Thanks again.

-Tyler

 

[wolluf]

Moving a HD should cause no problems (unless its been mistreated of course!).

From what you say - would (almost!) put money on it being a size of drive issue. If you do use the promise card - Murray's comment about 80 wire IDE cable becomes relevant (ie, if you want it to work at ATA100 and not 33).

 

[gonzilla]

Thanks wolluf!!!

-Tyler