"Dave Stevens" <geek DeleteThis @uniserve.com> wrote in message
news:939bf3ee.0310271557.3adff5fd@posting.google.com...
> I have a system that uses the Aopen AP5VM motherboard with AMI v2.50
> BIOS. I am trying to upgrade to a 40 gig IDE HD and am getting errors
> evry time. Ihave tried with Windows 2000 Pro and get a kernel
> exception. When I try with W98 I get a dos extender error. I have
> tried with Disk Manager to get around the BIOS size limit, but still
> get errors. I've tried various seemingly plausible variations in the
> install, but no joy.
>
> Ideas? Pointers to online material?
>
>
> Dave
I would flash the BIOS. It looks like there is a problem with your BIOS
version according to the AOpen site:
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://download.aopen.com.tw/downloads/default.asp?Software=All&searchoption=keyword&sel=category&selpage=&seltype=BIOS&keyword=AP5VM&Language=English" target="_blank">http://download.aopen.com.tw/downloads/default.asp?Software=All&search...ion=key</a>
or
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://tinyurl.com/sm8l" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/sm8l</a>
Just make sure you match the BIOS to your board revision number.
If you want to use the Disk Manager, it should work after that. I'm not a
big fan of it, but it does work. There can be problems if you ever try to
restore a backup image such as from Norton Ghost or Drive Image Pro, but if
you don't use them it shouldn't be an issue. In my opinion, the best
solution would be a hard drive controller card. The reasons for this are
twofold. First, they support at least a 137GB hard drive, and second, your
motherboard uses PIO4 mode ATA interface which is extremely slow by today's
standards. This mode transfers data at 16.6MB/sec max. where as most hard
drives now support 100 or 133MB/sec. transfer rate. These are ATA100 and
ATA133 interface. The cards a re very simple to install in an open PCI slot
and are relatively inexpensive, especially if you shop on eBay. Information
on these cards can be found at <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.promise.com" target="_blank">www.promise.com</a> and you can look for prices
on <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.pricewatch.com." target="_blank">www.pricewatch.com.</a> Your hard drive is more than likely an ATA66 or
ATA100, so I would go with the ATA100 card which is Promise model Ultra100
TX2. I just looked on eBay and these are available there for $15-20.
HTH
Chris<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
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