Old BIOS and large hard drive won't work with XP

[Jeff Bakke]

I have a 40 gig hard drive in an old 1995 gateway PC. I
had to use a drive overlay from Western Digital so the PC
would see the drive. I install Xp over Windows ME. During
the install the first reboot occurs and I get an error and
it say's XP install can't continue. Microsoft say's it's a
BIOS error and that XP doesn't like drive overlays. Funny
that ME runs fine. So I bought a card that adds to the
BIOS during boot up so the PC can see the drive but I get
the same error. Now I'm trying to put an ATA 100 IDE
controller card in but I get a PCI memory error. It say's
to increase the PCI memory in BIOS but I don't find a way
to do that in my BIOS. I think my PCI bus is to old for
the controller. Looks like I have to use my older 8 gig
hard drive that runs XP fine, but the drive speed cripples
the PC. Any one run into this befor?

 

[NobodyMan]

I have a 40 gig hard drive in an old 1995 gateway PC. I
had to use a drive overlay from Western Digital so the PC
would see the drive. I install Xp over Windows ME. During
the install the first reboot occurs and I get an error and
it say's XP install can't continue. Microsoft say's it's a
BIOS error and that XP doesn't like drive overlays. Funny
that ME runs fine. So I bought a card that adds to the
BIOS during boot up so the PC can see the drive but I get
the same error. Now I'm trying to put an ATA 100 IDE
controller card in but I get a PCI memory error. It say's
to increase the PCI memory in BIOS but I don't find a way
to do that in my BIOS. I think my PCI bus is to old for
the controller. Looks like I have to use my older 8 gig
hard drive that runs XP fine, but the drive speed cripples
the PC. Any one run into this befor?

A 1995 Gateway? One that isn't in a museum?

On a more serious note, I'd dump that thing. The BIOS is obviously
outdated, since it won't accept large HDD. XP more than likely will
NEVER work with the overlay that let you great-grandfather age BIOS
work with your larger HD. You could possibly flash your BIOS to a
newer version, but with that older hardware you run into other
problems - no AGP video, older RAM slots, slower FSB speeds, etc. All
this will combine to make your XP experience a very non-pleasant one.

 

[D.Currie]

Use the WD utility to remove the drive overlay and see if that works.

Or, if you have to use the overlay, you can't boot directly from CD or
floppy, you have to let the overlay start first, then access the CD or
floppy.

 

[Donald Link]

Why are you trying to screw around with such an old computer. By the time
you are done you will probably end up having continual problems the rest of
your life. Best thing to do was not upgrade to XP. You will never solve
problems with such an old computer. Save you money, run ME and quit
screwing with XP on such ancient equipment.

 

[Jeff Bakke]

-----Original Message-----


A 1995 Gateway? One that isn't in a museum?

On a more serious note, I'd dump that thing. The BIOS is obviously
outdated, since it won't accept large HDD. XP more than likely will
NEVER work with the overlay that let you great- grandfather age BIOS
work with your larger HD. You could possibly flash your BIOS to a
newer version, but with that older hardware you run into other
problems - no AGP video, older RAM slots, slower FSB speeds, etc. All
this will combine to make your XP experience a very non- pleasant one.

.

I built a new PC but I'm trying to upgrade this one to
have 2 PC's. I will try to get a new BIOS.