Questions Re: Older Gigabyte MOBO, etc.
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Thread: Questions Re: Older Gigabyte MOBO, etc.

  1. #1
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    Resolved Questions Re: Older Gigabyte MOBO, etc.

    I have an older Gigabyte MOBO: GA-7ZX with Via KT133 Chipset running on Wins 98SE using a Maxtor 40-GIG HD for the last 5 years without any issues. However, with MS support coming to an end for Wins 98SE (except for critical updates until June of 2006), there are software programs I cannot obtain unless I have Wins XP as software companies are not including Wins 98SE as a compatible OS for many new programs. I, therefore, plan to install Wins XP on an 80-GIG HD but also wish to keep my old Wins 98SE 40-GIG HD for handling many of the graphics programs/filters/plugins I've accrued over the last 5 years. My solution is to use an ATA 100 Mobile Rack for HDs so I can switch out to whichever HD I want to use at a particular time.

    Here's my dilemma. I've spent the last 2 days Google-searching for as much info as I can on my GA-7ZX MOBO but two things I've not been able to determine:

    1) does the GA-7ZX MOBO (with its origianl BIOS settings) support 80-GIG HDs without having to update the bios via bios flashing?

    2) is there a way for me to save my current bios settings to a floppy disk in case something goes wrong if I have to flash the bios to get the support for a larger HD?
    Last edited by Bintaur1; October 24th, 2005 at 10:32 AM.

  2. #2
    Intel Mod Platypus's Avatar
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    Welcome to WinDrivers, Bintaur

    If your current BIOS is F9 or higher (ie F9, Fa Fb...), the board will support drives above 64GB. If you have F8 or earlier (F3 was the first release for that board), there is a 64GB limit, and you would need to update.

    If you are going to update and want to save the existing BIOS, download AMIFLASH.EXE along with the BIOS update file, even if you intend to update from the F9 BIOS utility.

    Run the command AMIFLASH /S OLDBIOS.BIN from a DOS command line, this will save a copy of the existing BIOS into a file called OLDBIOS.BIN, which you can then store on a floppy in case of problems.
    Last edited by Platypus; October 22nd, 2005 at 10:03 PM.

  3. #3
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    Platypus: Of course, my current Bios version was F8 so I went to the Gigabyte site and D/L'd Bios version ff. Also D/L'd Gigabyte's neat little bios update program called @Bios and successfully updated to Bios version ff. This little program also asks you to backup the current bios version prior to updating to the new Bios version. Big relief for me as I have never flashed the bios before and was terrified I'd screw something up. However, everything went without a hitch and I was finished in two minutes with saving the old Bios version, updating to the new bios version and setting parameters in BIOS. Want to thank you so much for your help.

  4. #4
    Intel Mod Platypus's Avatar
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    Glad to help.

    I've steered clear of Windows-based updating utilities myself because of the possibility of timing inaccuracies giving a bad flash.

    But it got you the desired result!

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