BIOS stops when I fit new 40GB HDD

[smith6981]

Hi. I am running a Chaintech mobo with PIII 500MHz cpu and Win98SE. I need to upgrade the hdd and have bought a WD 80GB 7200 model. I used the EZ software to partition the new one and mirror my existing drive. It worked fine until I rebooted. Now the pc stops after auto detecting the primary slave (CD-ROM). If I replace the drive with the old one the pc works fine, but not with the new one. I have tried to tell the BIOS that it is a smaller drive like the EZ software describes but no matter what options I use, the POST stops at the detection stage, even if I have given it the spec. of the hdd and cd-rom.
The Award BIOS is original dated 05/13/99 and there is an upgrade but i do not have AWDFLASH.exe and the upgrade does not say it will help with large hard drives.
Do you have any ideas why this wont work?
Thanks

 

[Snickle]

"The Award BIOS is original dated 05/13/99 and there is an upgrade but i do not have AWDFLASH.exe"

The BIOS upgrade file and the program to flash the BIOS with [AWDFLASH.exe] usually are on the same page [may be a link] of the motherboard maker's site.

The drive may be too large for the BIOS. I have an Athlon 700 on a GigaByte board from May 2000 and it won't accept a 40GB drive, only gives me 32GB. I do have the BIOS update file to allow up to 75GB but don't yet know if I will use it. Doing just fine with WinXP Pro on it.

Another thing to try, don't auto-detect the CD [or Zip] drive/s, usually not needed unless booting to the CD.

For others reading and wondering about flashing/updating their BIOS, don't do it if the computer is working or you can identify a specific problem. This is one area where applying the latest update may not work/may not be needed. The flash process can fail and then you get the privilege of buying a new motherboard. The BIOS is usually customized by the board maker for that board.