Need to upgrade Phoenix BIOS 4.0

[Commoner]

I currently have Phoenix BIOS 4.0 Release 6.0 on my PII Machine - it's a 266MHz with 512KB Cache Ram, System Memory is 128MB.

My problem is that Release 6.0 does not support HDDs larger than 8GB, and I am trying to install a Western Digital 120GB HDD! I see on the Phoenix website, that their BIOS 4.0 release 6.1 does support the larger HDDs, but they say to contact my mobo manufacturer for anyone interested in doing a BIOS upgrade.

Does anyone know about upgrading from this release 6.0 to 6.1? Can I download the BIOS upgrade anywhere? Or is this something I am stuck with as an unchanging part of my mobo?

TYIA

 

[WW]

you could use the bios overlay software data lifeguard:

http://support.wdc.com/dlg/facts.asp

or, as phoenix says, there might be a motherboard bios upgrade that supports a larger drive (doubt it....but you can check)

what is the system a gateway or dell, etc, and model number...

 

[earthman]

Just how old is this thing?

 

[zepper00]

Who made the motherboard in your confuser? Phoenix, now merged with Award, didn't make motherboards, just provided BIOS cores to the mobo mfrs for them to customize for their mobos. Unless your mobo mfr went out of business, there likely is a BIOS update available on their web site for larger drives. All responsible mobo mfrs have done that for their older boards.
If you can't find out the mfr, there are add-on cards that have just a BIOS extension on them to support all current drives. Also, you could buy a PCI drive controller (probably cheaper than the BIOS extension) and get support for larger drives as well as UDMA-33, 66, 100, 133 support which cannot be had with a simple BIOS update. And you could then disable one or both of the on-board controller(s) (to free up an IRQ for the new one) or just use them for your older, slower drives. I think I saw one of these controller cards on: www.compgeeks.com in the $20. range. There's usually some on the ForSale/Trade forum here and eBay too.

.bh.

p.s. Activate Private Mail in your Profile so we might be able to notify you directly as well.bh.