BIOS Problem (American Megatrends)

[plonkeroo]

I cannot get my BIOS to assign the correct letters to the drives. How big a job would it be to get a new BIOS and how would I go about it?
Also (A) would I lose all the disc contents? (B) what BIOS would members recommend?

[Belisarius]

I've never switched BIOS's on a mtoherboard before, only flashed them with an updated version. You shouldn't loose the contents of the discs, as you're not even accessing them when you do a BIOS flash. But you might have to reinstall Windows if it can't find programs where it thinks they are when you reassign drives.

Generally speaking, you can reassign drive letters within Windows. I know I do.

[plonkeroo]

Originally posted by Belisarius I've never switched BIOS's on a motherboard before, only flashed them with an updated version. You shouldn't loose the contents of the discs, as you're not even accessing them when you do a BIOS flash. But you might have to reinstall Windows if it can't find programs where it thinks they are when you reassign drives. Generally speaking, you can reassign drive letters within Windows. I know I do.

Reinstalling Windows as an overlay wouldn't be a problem. My present problem is ahem rather peculiar so bear with me. Originally I had the works (Windows and Program Files) on C drive - Samsung, the larger disc - and on drive D - Maxtor, the smaller disc - I had music and miscellaneous files. I also had removable drives E and F, but these are unaffected. Then, a few weeks back, in a sort of lightning flash, drive letters C and D were reversed. Now the works are lettered drive D i.e. Samsung is called D and Maxtor is called C. So the files are still on the original physical discs but the drive letters are different.
I've tried re-establishing the original status but the BIOS doesn't present me with the full options anymore so I'm assuming the BIOS is knackered and that's why I reckon I need a new BIOS.
You said above that drive letters can be reassigned from within Windows? How does one go about doing this?

[Belisarius]

Are your hard drives setup with cable select or have you manually set master and slave? If you haven't, try the latter.

[Kernel_Killer]

The problem doesn't lay in the BIOS at all. Like Belisarius pointed out, it all depends on your cable setup. The master drive on the 1st controller (IDE controller0) always gets the highest priority, then C0 slave.

[plonkeroo]

Originally posted by Belisarius Generally speaking, you can reassign drive letters within Windows. I know I do.

Tell me more please
PS - I do not use cable, I am on ASDL Broadband. C and D were working the right way around previously and I did not knowingly alter anything

[Belisarius]

Erm . . . we weren't talking about your internet connection. We were talking about the cables that you use to connect the drives to the motherboard.

[plonkeroo]

Originally posted by Belisarius Erm . . . we weren't talking about your internet connection. We were talking about the cables that you use to connect the drives to the motherboard.

Oh, gotcha. These internal cables were set up by the guys who came around to upgrade my system and everything has been hunky-dory since then until recently. I can't get to grips with the innards myself as I'm physically disabled and so always look for keyboard solutions.
But here is some info I've gleaned from Belarc Advisor and which may help:-

"Windows 98 SE (build 4.10.2222)
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
1.73 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: K7VT2 2.00
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. P1.30 03/07/2003
Drives Memory Modules c,d
14.49 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
9.80 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
ATAPI CDROM 52X [CD-ROM drive]
LG CD-RW CED-8080B [CD-ROM drive]
Generic floppy disk drive (3.5")
Maxtor 84320D4 [Hard drive] (4.32 GB) -- drive 0, s/n L41SKH6A, rev NAVX1E20, SMART Status: Healthy
SAMSUNG SV1021H [Hard drive] (10.21 GB) -- drive 1, s/n 0272J1FR302979, rev PJ100-12, SMART Status: Healthy 256 Megabytes Installed Memory
Slot '0' has 256 MB
Local Drive Volumes
c: (on drive 0) 4.30 GB 2.32 GB free MAXTOR
d: (on drive 1) 10.19 GB 7.49 GB free SAMSUNG
Controllers Display
Standard Floppy Disk Controller
Primary IDE controller (dual fifo)
Secondary IDE controller (dual fifo)
VIA Bus Master PCI IDE Controller NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440 with AGP8X [Display adapter]
AOC 7K [Monitor] (15.7"vis, October 2002)"

I have since got this info from ba.exe:-

"BIOS Date: 03/07/03
BIOS Type: American Megatrends
BIOS ID: 62-P130-001368-00101111-040201-VIA_K7-K7VT2130
OEM Sign-On: K7VT2 BIOS P1.30
Chipset: VIA 82C3099 rev 0
Superio: Winbond 697HF rev 2 found at port 2Eh
OS: Win98
CPU: AMD Athlon(tm) XP 2100+ 1733 Mhz MAX: 3000 Mhz
BIOS ROM In Socket: Yes
BIOS ROM Size: 256K
Memory Installed: 256 MB
Memory Maximum: 4096 MB
Memory Slot 01: 256 MB"

[Belisarius]

Ouch, 98. It's been too long since I've worked with it, I can't remember how it differs from XP.

[plonkeroo]

Just for the record. It turns out that the problem was down to a not-too-obvious setting in the BIOS and the Samsung is now back in business as the legitimate C: drive! But why the heck don't BIOS makers provide proper instruction manuals?!

[Valmont]

Wich setting was that plonkeroo please? Perhaps handy to know.

[plonkeroo]

Originally posted by Valmont Which setting was that?

It was an option as to which hard disc has priority. When I switched to Samsung things started looking up. Because discs are listed alphabetically the setting I found was set to Maxtor which is in fact the secondary primary.

[Valmont]

Oki.