I am upgrading an old pc I have lying around. It is a P3 450Ghz with 8Gb hard drive. I want to put in a 40 Gb hard drive.
I swapped the drives over and then fired her up. Went into bios and set to auto detect hard disk. This crashed the thing. Now every time I boot up it tries to auto detect.
If I go into bios to the auto detect screen (to shut off the auto detect) it tries to auto detect straight away and doesn't let me set anything.

I have the size of the drive, cylinders, heads, sectors, but am unable to get in to update them.

Any advice please?? This is driving me mad......

Originally Posted by Poppy

I am upgrading an old pc I have lying around. It is a P3 450Ghz with 8Gb hard drive. I want to put in a 40 Gb hard drive.
I swapped the drives over and then fired her up. Went into bios and set to auto detect hard disk. This crashed the thing. Now every time I boot up it tries to auto detect.
If I go into bios to the auto detect screen (to shut off the auto detect) it tries to auto detect straight away and doesn't let me set anything.

I have the size of the drive, cylinders, heads, sectors, but am unable to get in to update them.

Any advice please?? This is driving me mad......

What about disconnecting the HDD, then entering BIOS and configure the HDD paramaters manually. Once saved, reconnect the HDD

Thanks, I tried that and it seemed to work. Got in and set parameters fine.
When I reconnected the HDD and rebooted it tried to autodetect again??

Probably forgot to save settings when exiting BIOS ?
Which controller and which channel does it autodetect on ?

Er, how do I find that out? It is the only HDD on the IDE to the M/B, on IDE 1. The CD is on IDE2.

It doesn't seem to let me save from the cmos setup or from the autodetect setup. I can escape out to main menu then save changes F10 from there, but then they don't seem to be saved. Also, just noticed that it automatically sets the size to 8456, the size of the old drive??

Aight lets see,

quite a few things that are to be taken into consideration:

- Update Bios if possible, some older boards have probs with HDD bigger then 32GB
- Clear CMOS (check in manual of mobo how its done, most of the times by a jumper)
- Remove the CDROM
- What happens if u just connect the HDD as Master on IDE0 and let it autodetect ?
- What happens if u just connect the HDD as Master on IDE1 and let it autodetect ?


Which mainboard is it ? Can u figure out manufacturer and model/type ?

Ok, PC was from Tiny. Can't see manufacurer of m/b anywhere. Is there any other way of finding this out?
I can now get it to boot with the original HDD in it.

SiSoft Sandra should recognise the Maiboard correctly. Afaik there is a free evaluation version of that tool for download on the SiSoft webpage.

What happens if you just connect the 40gig disk and nothing else, no CDROM, no second harddrive

@Poppy:

Quite useful tutorial i found here on d-a-l.com
http://www.d-a-l.com/auto-detect.php

Have a look at it

Board is a microstar. Here is the report I got from SISoft Sandra:

SiSoftware Sandra

Mainboard
Manufacturer : Micro Star Inc.
MP Support : No
Model : Intel 440BX
System BIOS : 61-0310-001169-00111111-071595-440BX

Memory Controller
Error Detection Method : None
Error Correction Capability : None
Supported/Current Memory Interleave : 1-way / 1-way
Number of Memory Slots : 2
Maximum Installable Memory : 256MB
Maximum Module Size : 128MB
Supported Memory Types : DIMM, SDRAM
Supported Memory Voltages : +3.3V

Physical/BIOS Memory Banks
DIMM 1 (RASL-0 RASL-1) : 128MB DIMM SDRAM double-bank
DIMM 2 (RASL-2 RASL-3) : 256MB DIMM SDRAM double-bank

Chipset 1
Model : Intel Corporation 82443BX/ZX 440BX/ZX CPU to PCI Bridge (AGP Implemented)
Bus(es) : ISA AGP PCI USB i2c/SMBus
Front Side Bus Speed : 1x 100MHz (100MHz data rate)
Maximum FSB Speed / Max Memory Speed : 1x 100MHz / 1x 100MHz
Width : 64-bit
IO Queue Depth : 4 request(s)

Logical/Chipset 1 Memory Banks
Bank 0 : 64MB SDRAM 3-3-3-0
Bank 1 : 64MB SDRAM 3-3-3-0
Bank 2 : 128MB SDRAM 3-3-3-0
Bank 3 : 128MB SDRAM 3-3-3-0
Bank 4 : 128MB SDRAM 3-3-3-0
Bank 5 : 128MB SDRAM 3-3-3-0
Speed : 1x 100MHz (100MHz data rate)
Multiplier : 1/1x
Width : 64-bit
Refresh Rate : 62.40µs
Power Save Mode : No
Fixed Hole Present : No

Memory Module 1
Manufacturer : MSC Vertriebs
Model : 872V166D3DT4YDG
Type : 128MB ECC SDRAM
Technology : 18x(8Mx8)
Speed : PC100U 3-3-3-6
Version : 1.2
Date of Manufacture : 30 November 2036
Set Timing @ 125MHz : 3-3-3-6
Set Timing @ 100MHz : 2-2-2-6

Memory Module 2
Model : 32MX64G-100
Serial Number : 990604C2
Type : 256MB SDRAM
Technology : 16x(16Mx8)
Speed : PC100U 3-2-2-6
Version : 1.2
Date of Manufacture : 25 December 1999
Set Timing @ 100MHz : 3-2-2-6
Set Timing @ 83MHz : 2-2-2-6

Memory Module 3
Model : 32MX64G-133
Serial Number : 001021C3
Type : 256MB SDRAM
Technology : 16x(16Mx8)
Speed : PC133U 3-3-3-5
Version : 1.2
Date of Manufacture : 25 December 1999
Set Timing @ 133MHz : 3-3-3-5
Set Timing @ 100MHz : 2-2-2-6

AGP Bus(es) on Hub 1
Version : 1.00
Speed : 2x 66MHz (132MHz data rate)
Multiplier : 2/3x
Side Band Enabled : No
Side Band Support : Yes
Aperture Size : 64MB

PCI Bus(es) on Hub 1
Version : 2.10
Number of Bridges : 1
PCI Bus 0 : PCI (33MHz)
Multiplier : 1/3x

LPC Hub Controller 1
Model : Intel Corporation 82371EB/MB PIIX4E/M ISA Bridge
ACPI Power Management Enabled : Yes
Multiplier : 1/4x
Speed : 8MHz
DMA Multiplier : 1/2x
DMA Speed : 4MHz

USB Controller 1
Model : Intel Corporation 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4/E/M USB Controller
Version : 1.10
Interface : UHCI
Channels : 2
Speed : 48MHz
Supported Speed(s) : Low (1.5Mbps) Full (12Mbps)
Legacy Emulation Enabled : No

System SMBus Controller 1
Model : Intel/SW PIIX4/OSBx SMBus
Advanced TCO Mode Enabled : No
Slave Device Enabled : Yes
PEC Support : No
Speed : 16kHz

Expansion Slot(s)
ISA Slot1 (1h) : ISA 16-bit Full-Length
ISA Slot2 (2h) : ISA 16-bit Full-Length
ISA Slot3 (2h) : ISA 16-bit Full-Length
PCI Slot1 (1h) : PCI 32-bit Full-Length Used (Intel Corporation 82443BX/ZX 440BX/ZX PCI to AGP Bridge)
PCI Slot2 (2h) : PCI 32-bit Full-Length Used
PCI Slot3 (3h) : PCI 32-bit Full-Length Available
PCI Slot4 (3h) : PCI 32-bit Full-Length Available
AGP Slot (4h) : AGP 64-bit Full-Length Available (Nvidia Corp Riva TNT GUI+3D Accelerator [NV4])

Port Connector
COM Port - Serial Port A : Serial Port 16550A - DB-9 pin male / DB-9 pin male
COM Port - Serial Port B : Serial Port 16550A - DB-9 pin male / DB-9 pin male
LPT Port - Parallel Port : Parallel Port ECP/EPP - DB-25 pin female / DB-25 pin female
Key - Keyboard : Keyboard - None / Micro-DIN
Mouse - PS/2 Mouse : Mouse - None / PS/2
Primary IDE - IDE-1 : None - ATA / None
Secondary IDE - IDE-2 : None - ATA / None
Floppy - Floppy : None - Floppy Disk / None

Performance Tips
Notice 224 : SMBIOS/DMI information may be inaccurate.
Tip 2505 : System does not support memory error detection. Some memory errors may go unnoticed.
Warning 2507 : Mainboard has too few memory slots. Upgrading the memory may be difficult or expensive.
Warning 2508 : All memory slots are full. Upgrading the memory may be difficult or expensive.
Warning 100 : Large memory sizes should be made of Registered/Buffered memory.
Tip 2546 : Large memory modules should be ECC/Parity.
Tip 2 : Double-click tip or press Enter while a tip is selected for more information about the tip.


Does this help?

Also when I just plug in the 40Gb HDD and nothing else then I get Atapi Incompatible error press F1 to resume. It then tries to boot but stops at Primary master: