Can any one help me to upgrade my BIOS?? :(

[mnislamshihan]

Hi,
I am using a AMD K6-2 Machine in Red fox Motherboard manufactured by Ford Lian bought in 1998. I've lost my motherboard CD (even the packaging cover of the motherboard) as it a very old model. Even I've lost the Model Number of my MB. Till some months ago, everything was going smooth. But now when the time has come that there is no HDD available in market smaller than 40 GB, I m really in trouble as my motherboard (most probably the bios) does not support HDD larger than 30 GB. Moreover, recently I've purchased a USB Flash drive. So, I buyed a USB port which was not with my casing (as it wasn't neccessery at the purchasing time) and connect it into my USB port. But after booting the machine I've come to discover that my OS (Windows 98 SE) can't detect the USB port or the USB drive connected into that port. I've tried all the way I know to make the windows detect it. But I've failed. After a long though I've remebered that after installing the MB drivers in the very first days of installing OS in my PC some new devices (Basically IDE controllers & etc..) had been found. But as I did not faced any problem without those I've just skipped the installation of MB drivers in my successive installation and so lost it eventually.
Now to solve my problems I've searched the internet all the possible ways i know and able to find the info that my MB's manufacturer is Ford Lian (which was a clone MB manufacturer, currently closed and there is no support site for that older fordlian MBs' in anywhere) and the brand is Red Fox. The chipset used in my MB is ALADDIN 5 AGP-ALI M1542/M1543 and most probably the model is 5IHXA (I m not sure, knew it from a page in www). I've find the manual which actually for my motherboard. A copy can be downloaded from the link http://www.elhvb.com/mboards/fordlian/m ... pali_1.exe if wanted. There are also some resources which can be helpfull for other at http://www.elhvb.com/mboards/fordlian/Garner.html .From that site I've downloaded also the 1.4 version (mine is 1.3) bios image maching my Award BIOS Id which is 08/99-ALADDIN5-2A5KKF9AC-00. http://th2chips.host.sk/redfox/ali-agp/index.html can be another REDFOX resource page for the seekers like me. But after flashing the new image into my bios doesn't change anything as the version date difference is only 6 months and 1.4 is also significantly a old version.

So, I need the MB drivers (at least for the IDE controller) and a BIOS update file (at least one to support 40 GB HDD) to flash my BIOS to upgrade to support new devices and HDDs.

I think I've clarify all the things necessery to help me. Though mail me if further information is needed.

Thanks in advance.

[TazUk]

BIOSes are written for specific motherboards so if v1.4 is the most recent for your board then they are no others you can use

It seems like ALi have pulled the driver section from their site, luckily they are still on Gigabytes site here :-

http://tw.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Sup ... (Rev%205.2).htm

Ontrack make a utility called Disk Manager which should allow you to install a llarger drive even if the BIOS doesn't support it. You can download it from Samsung's website, hopefully this will work with your make/model of hard disk

http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDis ... utilities/

[mnislamshihan]

Dear TazUk,
Thank you very much for ur quick support. I posted the msg actually b4 tested the 1.4 version with larger HDD practically. I was just confused if it could solve my problem. But when I've practically installed a 40 GB HDD after flashing the BIOS to 1.4 version It detected the HDD without any problem and also tested successfully with 128+128 = 256 DRAM which wasn't supported b4 the upgradation . So, any user who have the same problem can download the BIN file from the link I specified before.
Anyway, the ALI-AGP drivers were barely needed for me to make the USB port functional. But I m a bit confused that the driver is intended to use with GA-5AX. Won't it create any problem while use with my motherboard??? The concept of software & device driver is telling me that it won't cause any problem. Though I just wanna be sure from u b4 tyrying it.

With Regards,
M. N Islam Shihan
Programmer
Surroundapps Inc.
Bangladesh

[TazUk]

The GA-5AX uses the same chipset as your board so the drivers for it will be fine, in fact any drivers for the ALi Alladin 5 chipset will work. Normally you would install several drivers, AGP, IDE and chipset, the last ones usually cover the USB.

[mnislamshihan]

Thank you very much for ur quick clarification