Install of newer HD on older PC

[DonTech]

I don't know how many of you know me well, but I am studying in a trade school to be a technician and well, here's my problem:
I bet that most of you can not even believe that I am working on a museum piece such as this Packard Bell Legend 66 Supreme, but I am. This old PB has a Pheonix BIOS that doesn't support auto-detect and has only the original presets. I have a newer Western Digital HD of about 2Gb which I am trying to install. I have used the WD utilities (new version and older) to no avail. The new HD is still undetected by the BIOS. If anyone out there has any tips or a link to a nice utility that might help me resolve my issue, I would be very thankful.

 

[deadtoaster2]

i did something similar with a pacbell not sure what type but i was having that problem too. if you havent allready tried it restart computer and go into bios. (think its F1) then just configure all your drives there. it worked 4 me. good luck seeya

 

[DonTech]

" It's a limitation of the motherboard and bios."

Is there any way around it? I've tried using the Western Digital utilities on their web site but I'm still having the problem. Also, when I set the drive stats manually, it only reads 200Megs of the 2Gb HD. I was told there was supposed to be a few progs that would fool the BIOS into reading the whole drive but I can't seem to find any.

 

[neb1211]

if you feel confortable you could always try flashing the bios. This could fry your motherboard though so do this at your own risk.

 

[DonTech]

Thanks for all the great advice. I also heard from a friend in class that I might be able to use a HD controller card with its own BIOS. (My class has a bone yard of parts and such but we have to go through the instructor before we can get a new component.)

 

[DonTech]

Yeah, they're all ISA slots. Hopefully, my instructor has an old ISA controller card to support LBA mode. He's the kind of teacher who gives you the answer in the form of a riddle, which makes you confused and forces you to find the answer for yourself. I'm getting really good at researching information thanks to him

 

[Geniusdude]

well partion it. I have my 266(see sig below) which has a 13GB HD and it can only hold an 8. But in the installation, I partitioned it for an 8 and a 5. So my C is 8GB and my D is 5GB. You should try that same.

But find the limit that its at.

 

[DonTech]

I've thought of that. However, the BIOS does not recognize the HD when it boots. And the Western Digital utilities I used cannot partition it, they can only format it. If I could find a utility that could see it even if the BIOS doesn't, I'd be set. (Sorry if I sound sinical, I've just been getting fed up with this thing.)