ATA Card, BIOS, HDD

[redbaron_snoopy]

There're a few questions I need advice on

This oldie I'm working on is a M539 (PCChips). I'm trying to use a ATA PCI Controller card on it without success. There's no "SCSI" prority to select in the bios (and the bios update will not work due to inherent faulty bios update procedure). However, it recognise during boot that a PCI RAID device is in slot 3.

Interestingly, though bios recognise the new 20gb as only 8gig,
but after going into win98, it correctly recognise that I've 6gig for C and 14gig for D. (This was done before hooking the drive up to this mobo) Is this normal ? Does able to recognise the space in win98 means it's useable ? Is the bios 8gig limit any implication in this situation ?

Coming back to the ATA card again, is there any way to "trick" the bios to boot through the controller card or is it a dead end ?

Can it be generalised that if the bios has no provision to boot from SCSI, the ATA card cannot be used ? (Another board I'm going to work on is an Amptron PM-7600. It too has no selection for SCSI in the bios. Will an ATA card work in this ?)

Comments appreciated
Mike

[bailey]

you might try updateing the bios.
sometimes flashing the bios will give you more support for the newer devices.

[redbaron_snoopy]

It's documented that this M539 has a faulty flash update procedure. Bios cannot be flash on-board. Tried it out and didn't work.

[bailey]

you might be stuck with what you got.

pc-chips board is not good idea to play around with it too much,

is it possible to replce the motherboard with a better one.

[glc]

What boot devices ARE available in the bios?

By the way - Amptron = PC Chips.

[redbaron_snoopy]

Boot devices ae A, C, CD-ROM. No SCSI.
Yes, I read about Amptron. Btw, this model also has inherent faulty bios flash procedure, just like the M539.

Any comments on the drive size reported in bios and size reported in win98 ? Is what I did a workaround solution for old bios with 8gig limit where ATA card cannot be used ? That is, format the HDD on a mobo that support bigger capacity HDD and then transfer it to the older pc ?

[redbaron_snoopy]

Hi there, I hope someone can throw in some light.

Thanks, Mike