I have a Gateway g6-333 pentium2 with an Astoria motherboard and Phoenix bios4 release6. I have an IBM 8.4GB drive already installed from the factory. I have been told I need to flash the motherboard to be able to see the IBM DJNA-352500 (25GB) which I wish to add and have been given the gateway site ftp://ftp.gw2k.co.uk/Bios/Desktop/Astoria/AstoriaP17.zip
1)has anyone used this download and was it OK
2) Installing an extra 128MB of ram and the hard drive wil be my first attempt at upgrading.
I have the mandatory anti static wrist band and a reasonable idea where to start, but....any advice or guidance will be gratefully accepted.
Once I have upgraded the machine I have a DC30 plus card to install. So any advice on that will be appreciated.
I have read the magazine since the beginning so I have some reference material but people's experience is invaluable.
Four points to watch out for (other folk may have more):
1/ Make sure your read, re-read, and following the instructions to the letter
2/ Ensure that, before you flash the bios, you go into the bios and write down EVERY single setting! And, restore them afterwards, if they've changed.
3/ The updater program should let you save the old bios to floppy before updating - make sure you do accept that option, in can get you out of trouble if, say, the power fails (or someone kicks out the power lead) in the middle of the flashing process.
4/ For reasons I don't understand, when I flashed the Bios (a Phoenix, I think) on an Intel motherboard in the office, Win 98 needed to be re-installed - most of the hardware that had been recognised and working, simply wasn't recognised, and the only way around the problem was to re-install (over the top, of the old one, I'm relieved to say). This might be because I didn't follow step 2/ above.
So don't go doing the flash upgrade on a day when you'll be needing to use the PC.
Having said all that, I had no trouble at all flashing the AMI (?) bioses on two Gigabyte boards - though one should still take the precautions mentioned.
Oh, and all the flash upgrade will do is let the PC properly recognised drives over 8.4GB. It won't ensure that the drive is running at full speed (see the FAQs forum for some tips - go back 30-45 days). And it also defintely won't mean that you are running the drive in UltraATA66 mode - you need a new motherboard and special driver support, or a Promise Ultra66 controller card - a product with which I have had very little joy over the last month!!
:-(
Bob C
Bob C
[This message has been edited by bcrabtree (edited 13 May 1999).]