Second opinion please

Ok...here's the deal. I'm slowly upgrading an old box for my kids so I can have mine back. It's a Celeron 366 on an abit BM6 m/b, 128 megs of RAM. I just updated the BIOS to accomodate large h/d's and tried to install a 7200 rpm 40 gig WD Caviar. I've set the CMOS to auto detect the drives but I can't get it to "see" the 40 gig at all, and I've tried every jumper configuration possible to get this puppy to bark. It can still find the old fujitsu 3.2 gig that was the master drive (I intended to keep it around as a slave for win98 to live on). The only thing I haven't tried yet is using an ATA100 ribbon cable (I've got one around here somewhere, just can't find it) although I can't see that as being the problem as the BM6 doesn't support ATA100 and the drive should be backwards compatable with UDMA 33 protocol that the board DOES support. Anyone have a second opinion on this one or have I finally been shipped a drive that is DOA??

I usually just slave the drive into another box
that way you can tell if it is the board or the drive.

HTHs

Morgan

I don't know why your bothering to upgrade a box that old. The $ you'll put on upgrading will probably cost you more that just buying a cheap new computer from HP or Dell. That without forgeting the fact that upgrading a Pc with new hardware is very time consuming.

For your HD problem, did you check your Bios for the large drive compability? Some old BIOS don't accept HD bigger that a certain size (Not know witch one) but I'm sure it's bigger that 40 GO.

Try upgrading your BIOS or just save your money and buy a new cheap computer. Good luck.

hey.. my 1000th post in just over 2 years.. around .75 posts per day.. lol

w00t w00t..

allen, it's a known issue with WD drives that they are funky when it comes to having other devices on the ide cable. set that jumper to drive select ,which I think for most WD drives is no jumper.. see if that works for you..

edit : with that old of a bios..I'd expect it not to be able to autodetect it properly as well as not be able to see the whole drive.. I'd try manually entering in the parameters.

OK...eventually this WILL be a new computer...the course I choose for upgrading REALLY isn't a point of debate here. As mentioned in the original post *cough SDK cough* the BIOS IS UPDATED already so I SERIOUSLY DOUBT that is the issue...the BIOS update specifically addresses the large hard drive issue and supports drives up to AT LEAST 40 gigs. Even without a BIOS update, it would recognise the 40 gig drive as a drive of the maximum size supported by the BIOS (i.e. it is possible for the BIOS to see the 40 gig as a 15 gig or something to that effect) so I'm leaning towards either a cable issue or a DOA drive....unless someone can point me in another direction. In the meantime I will be following morgan's advice (mucho gracias...leave it to me to overlook something that obvious) and try to slave it into MY box later on this evening and see what happens there.

actually that was pretty stupid of me not to have read your post correctly.

for some reason I saw 366 and thought a 386 processor :o

maybe I'll learn to read by post # 2000.. :rolleyes:

yeah by all means.. checking that the drive with that cable in another box would be a first good step. I don't think that drive would require an ATA100 cable.

I think I''ll have to learn also by my 1000 post!

1) Can you try plugging the Fujitsu 3.2 gig on both IDE1 and 2? Both are working?

2) Try Using the same ribbon, power cord and same IDE for the 40Go that for the Fujitsu?

If your bios is update, the only might be those : IDE/Motherboard failure, ribbon failire, power cord failure.

OR maybe Hard Drive Failure. morganlefay idea will work to check that.