Trying to upgrade HDD

[bwesley8]

I've got an aging PIII 800 MHz Windows XP Home SP2 system that isn't
recognizing the new HDD I'm trying to install... The new drive is a 120 Gb
WD, intended to replace a 6-Gb Maxtor as Secondary-Master (slave is a
DVD-ROM). Primary-Master is a 20-Gb Maxtor with DVD burner as slave. On
booting, the system reports "Secondary Master drive failure."

Suspecting that a BIOS upgrade will be required, I did a bit of searching
and found that Award doesn't provide upgrades, rather they are available
from eSupport.com -- anybody dealt with them before? I ran their BIOS Agent
to get the following info:

BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PGN,
05/08/2000-693-596-SMC-2A6LGX3JC
Chipset: VIA 82C691 rev 68

Before I go any further with this (contacting eSupport), I'm wondering
whether it's worth it -- what does it typically cost for the upgrade, and
how risky is the operation?

Thanks,

BW.

 

[Pen]

Why pay? Go to the mobo makers web site
and get the latest BIOS flash from them
for free. This also has the added benefit
of being guaranteed to work.

 

[kony]

I've got an aging PIII 800 MHz Windows XP Home SP2 system that isn't
recognizing the new HDD I'm trying to install... The new drive is a 120 Gb
WD, intended to replace a 6-Gb Maxtor as Secondary-Master (slave is a
DVD-ROM). Primary-Master is a 20-Gb Maxtor with DVD burner as slave. On
booting, the system reports "Secondary Master drive failure."

Suspecting that a BIOS upgrade will be required, I did a bit of searching
and found that Award doesn't provide upgrades, rather they are available
from eSupport.com -- anybody dealt with them before? I ran their BIOS Agent
to get the following info:

Yes it's likely that you need a bios update if possible, but
you do not get this from Award or "esupport", it comes from
the motherboard manufacturer.

BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PGN,
05/08/2000-693-596-SMC-2A6LGX3JC
Chipset: VIA 82C691 rev 68

Before I go any further with this (contacting eSupport), I'm wondering
whether it's worth it -- what does it typically cost for the upgrade, and
how risky is the operation?

I never deal with them as it isn't worth it, usually.
If your board is slot 1 instead of socket 370 you might have
a harder time finding a replacement board, but certainly
there are boards supporting larger drives, even if they too
require a bios update to do so... but you can check on that
prior to purchasing a board, (again, from the motherboard
manufacturer, not award or some 3rd party like "esupport").

Based on the bios string you provided above your board
appears to be an ACorp 6VIA81P or just 6VIA81 (no "P").
The "P" version would offer 133MHz FSB support, check
whether your board does, and/or if it uses Via 693A or only
693 northbridge chipset. 693A uses "P" bios.

http://www.acorp.com.tw/eng/download/download02.asp?pronameid=207&lineid=1

Note that you might already have the last bios, such are the
problems with cheap boards, limited support later.

Since your board only supports ATA33 (Maybe ATA66) something
else you could consider is an ATA133 PCI controller card.
It will provide full size support for a new drive AND the
faster ATA speed. There are many alternatives but one
common model is a "Promise Ultra 133 TX2". I'd opt for the
PCI controller before paying for a new bios, or finding a
new board but since yours is slot 1 (AFAICT), it would be
the harder route.

 

[Paul Murphy]

I've got an aging PIII 800 MHz Windows XP Home SP2 system that isn't
recognizing the new HDD I'm trying to install... The new drive is a 120
Gb WD, intended to replace a 6-Gb Maxtor as Secondary-Master (slave is a
DVD-ROM). Primary-Master is a 20-Gb Maxtor with DVD burner as slave. On
booting, the system reports "Secondary Master drive failure."

Suspecting that a BIOS upgrade will be required, I did a bit of searching
and found that Award doesn't provide upgrades, rather they are available
from eSupport.com -- anybody dealt with them before? I ran their BIOS
Agent to get the following info:

BIOS: Award Modular BIOS v4.51PGN,
05/08/2000-693-596-SMC-2A6LGX3JC
Chipset: VIA 82C691 rev 68

Before I go any further with this (contacting eSupport), I'm wondering
whether it's worth it -- what does it typically cost for the upgrade, and
how risky is the operation?

Thanks,

BW.

I'm going to go against the grain of common opinion and suggest the problem
is more likely another issue as 120 GB is just under the maximum capacity
that most boards of that era can handle without problems. I have 3 slot 1
Pentium III boards and all (including 2 VIA chipset items) will cope with
120 GB drives and the Intel 820 chipset based one even allows Windows XP Pro
SP2 to install on a 250 GB HDD setup as the primary master and all of the
drive is usable.

Did you correctly jumper the drive? Have you used an 80 conductor cable -
not that this second point should cause the drive to not work at all? Have
you tried unplugging other unnecessary drives to make sure its not a power
shortage from the PSU that's responsible - or used another Molex HDD power
cable from the PSU? Finally, have you tested the HDD in another machine?

Paul

 

[bwesley8]

Paul,

WD provides its own installation wizard which I ran prior to installing the
new 120-Gb drive. It analyzed the system and (correctly) recommended
installation as Secondary-Master; I'm sure the jumper was correct.

I did not use an 80-conductor cable -- rather, I just unplugged the old
drive from the existing cable (and power) and used the same connectors for
the new drive. When I gave up on the installation, I simply replaced the old
drive with the original connections, and it still works fine -- seems to
verify functional cable and adequate power.

As for testing the drive in another PC, that hasn't been done -- it's a new
drive (I know that's no guarantee, but it seems the likelihood of DOA is
pretty low), and I don't have another PC available to test it with.

Your comments are encouraging and I plan to try the installation again later
this week when I have some extended free time to play with it. It's
probably unrelated, but there's now no sound (System indicates sound card
working properly); something else to sort out.

Thanks,

Bart

 

[Paul Murphy]

Some HDD manufacturers (not sure if WD is one of them), release their drives
to the market jumpered for cable select mode and some motherboards can't
cope with this (especially if an 80 conductor cable isn't used) - it may
need to be changed from the factory default to work properly in your
machine. The new drive may expect different power requirement tolerances to
the old (or may be more fussy about the power which is supplied). Just
because the other one works in this setup is far from confirmation that the
new one should without a few changes. A dodgy or underpowered PSU can be
responsible for many faults (including other hardware malfunctioning - such
as sound cards). If you remove all other devices from the PSU load for
testing purposes e.g. CDROM/DVD Drives etc, then it would be more likely to
confirm or deny the PSU as being the cause - likewise trying an 80 conductor
cable. I agree that a DOA drive would be very unlikely.

Paul

 

[bwesley8]

I decided to skip church this morning and go back through the drive
installation again. After removing the old HDD, I checked the jumper on the
new drive to confirm it was for Dual Master -- it was, but I pulled it off
anyway to make sure the pins weren't bent (they weren't), and then I dropped
it. After a few minutes of unsuccessful search (it's always amazing to me
how physical objects can so effectively disappear), I retrieved another
jumper from my junk box and installed it, then physically installed the
drive and made connections. When I booted the PC, I must admit that I was a
bit surprised to see all of the drives, including the new 120-Gb, properly
identified(!)

I'm 99.9% sure that the drive was properly jumpered in the first attempt, so
the only significant change implemented in the second attempt was to replace
the jumper -- could the original jumper been defective in some way?

Anyway, the new drive is installed, so I'll move on to my next question:
how do I move the contents of the current "C" drive (Windows XP, SP2) to the
new "D" drive and make it the boot drive? I rather expected WD to provide
some utility to do this, but apparently not.

Thanks,

Bart

 

[kony]

I'm going to go against the grain of common opinion and suggest the problem
is more likely another issue as 120 GB is just under the maximum capacity
that most boards of that era can handle without problems. I have 3 slot 1
Pentium III boards and all (including 2 VIA chipset items) will cope with
120 GB drives and the Intel 820 chipset based one even allows Windows XP Pro
SP2 to install on a 250 GB HDD setup as the primary master and all of the
drive is usable.

OP's board is a generic early via slot 1 chipset, most of
those didn't support > 32GB till after a bios update, IF the
board manufacturer eventually released one to address it.
Later P3 via et al boards more more likely to natively
support > 32GB.

 

[Paul Murphy]

Pity that you don't have access to another PC or you could gather an image
of the old HDD, swap HDDs and then load that collected image onto the new
HDD - assuming you had a network card in your machine and some imaging
software for the other machine. That's by far the simplest way to do it. If
you don't have all the original install CDs or don't want to have do a
backup and reinstall then perhaps you could take it to a nearby computer
shop for them to do the imaging or they may have a HDD copying machine (they
do exist). I've never tried simply copying drives but if the one you want to
copy from is the boot drive, you'd have to set up another drive to boot from
as a minimum. I've never tried this so I'm not even sure it would work then.
I have however used Nero 6's Drive backup program to make a recovery DVD
from a HDD which was not installed as a boot drive and that worked fine -
again though, you're going to have to make the original boot drive into a
secondary drive to do this.

Paul