Diagnostics or a mallet?

[TheBigBasicQ]

Which motherboard?

[relsoft]

Dunno. Never ripped it apart. Bought it second hand with no warranties and no manuals. Not eve a sys spec doc or anything. :*)

I am assuming its a cyrix though.

[na_th_an]

How do you know it won't admit HDDs with more than 10 Gb? :o

Open your computer. You just need a screwdriver. Remove the case and look for the brand and serial no. of your motherboard. Then go to Internet and do a search in google.

Most likely you'll end with the user's manual. I've repaired quite a big lot of old computers last year, and I even could find full scanned manuals of old Optek 386 motherboards, so a motherboard for a 233MMX will be easily found.

My old 233 worked with a 30 Gb HDD. I just had a normal AT-alike motherboard (those who fit in a AT case), with no PS2 nor USB sockets. So it was just a plain motherboard. And it worked with a 30 Gb HDD...

And if you really can't fit anything bigger than 10 Gb it is a BIOS issue, not a motherboard issue. A BIOS update could solve the problem.

[relsoft]

Because we did it once. A friend of mine who's a comp tech grad helped me. :*(

it was a 20Gig Fujitsu HD.

We tried messing the CMOS up and literally tried every list on the HD config and it can't see the darn drive. We even tried making it a slave to no avail. :*(

[na_th_an]

"Ever list"...

Don't you have an "AUTO IDE" feature :o ?

You can try to enter the specs by hand. Doesn't your BIOS let you do that? I mean, cylinders, heads, sectors, ...

If it's a IDE HDD, it will work in an IDE card. The BIOS may not recognize it, but if you tell the BIOS the specs it will work.

Externally, a 20 Mb IDE HDD is the same as a 30 Gb IDE HDD.

[relsoft]

Cool!!!! I'll try to tell those dumbasses repairman it could be done.

Thanks!!!