Presario 5304 Hard Drive limit

[Charles Cosby_3]

I have a client with a Presario 5304 and he is trying to install a hard drive larger than the 4.3 gig that it came with. We have tried a 10 gig and a 40 gig and both just come up with bios errors and will not boot, even from a CD. The information is as follows:
Award bios 2A51MG09
Seies CM0204
WRA90710-3
Is the bios upgradable on this system and how big a hard drive can he install? Thanks Charles

[Roger Faucher]

Charles:

Here's an article about hard disk drive size barriers, in general:

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm

You may be able to get around the limitation by using software (free) from the HDD manufacturer's website OR by installing a PCI hard disk controller which will get around the problem AND improve performance (if the drives are ATA100 or ATA133).

Post the drive mfgr/model and I'll try to steer you.

Make a great day!

Roger

[Charles Cosby_3]

I am sorry, I must not have made my question clear enough. I am asking if there is a bios update for this computer to recognize the bigger drives. I know there is a limitation and I know there are ways around it and the cheapest and most effective would be a bios update. Either Rompaq or changing the actual chip.

I am not used to Presario's, normally dont touch them. All of my computers that I manage are Compaq's but they are ProLiants and Deskpro's and some EVO's.

Thanks for your time
Charles

[Roger Faucher]

Hello Charles:

Sorry about that. I went into all that other stuff because there seems to be no BIOS upgrade available. When you install a larger HDD, can you go into the BIOS Setup program and have it detect the new drive and see if it is detected properly. If it is, try booting from a WIN98SE boot floppy (available from www.bootdisk.com) and run FDISK. See if FDISK can 'see' the entire hard disk drive. If you can, you may be able to create multiple smaller (4GB?) partitions to solve the problem without using the suggestions I posted previously.

HTH

Roger

[Lane_11]

The Presario 5304 bios does not have a HDD identify option like most bios' .
Perhaps it is hidden with a special keystroke but it is not displayed to the user.