Re: A7V333 - 200GB drive on ATA controller - troubleshooting help please

In article <301ec21euto5oppfts516jsmk041ckn28k@xxxxxxx>, Frank
<Frank@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

A7V333 w BIOS ver. 1017 = Award 6.0 7/25/02
Win98SE, Asus MB utilities and drivers installed
200 GB Seagate ATA drive, 110 GB (F:) and 90 GB (G:) FAT32 partitions
Partitioned and formatted w PM8
----------
Everything works fine with the drive on the RAID controller, but I
have corruption when attached to the ATA controller.

I have seen here that the v1017 BIOS supports 128-bit LBA, and the VIA
4in1 MB drivers for win98SE should also support >128 GB. How can I
determine what component is not supporting 128-bit LBA correctly?

1. Is there anywhere to check the BIOS version specs?
2. How can I determine the VIA drivers versions, check their
capabilities, and update if needed.

NOTE: This machine is running 98SE to support some HW without later
drivers (film scanner, dye sub printer) and also to duplicate problems
others are having with 98; removing Win98 is not a solution. The XP,
2K, and Linux boxes are doing fine with big drives.

Any hint appreciated,
Frank

Reads section 7 here:

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf

There is a difference in software, between the ports on a
Southbridge (native IDE) and the ports on either an UltraATA
card or a RAID controller (SCSI emulation layer). The SCSI
emulation layer hides the details of the 137GB limit from
the operating system. (The UltraATA card or the RAID controller
that use SCSI emulation, still have to solve the 137GB problem,
so the problem does not go away. But the thing is, no
Microsoft software is going to be disturbed by the problem.
So as long as the UltraATA PCI card or RAID controller
is compatible with >137GB disks, then the problem is solved.)

When the Microsoft operating system finds storage devices
that use a SCSI emulation driver, the Microsoft SCSI path is
used. The OS prepares a CDB and sends it to the UltraATA
card or RAID controller, and the driver for those converts
the info in the CDB into the appropriate representation to
drive the silicon chip. As long as the command/data block
has enough room for the logical block address, there is
no limit to how big a disk can be used. (A slide set I found
says the logical block address in the CDB is 32 bits, suitable
for addressing up to a 2TB disk.)

http://www.cs.uml.edu/~bill/cs520/SCSI_tut.ppt (info on CDB format)

Maybe what is upsetting Win98, is the G: partition. Since
it is past the 137GB mark, I expect there would be an
address rollover problem whenever G: is written to, when using
the Southbridge. At least based on what I read in the Seagate
document above. WinXP SP1 wouldn't have that problem...

Paul
.

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