Is this really true about Compaq's Bios?

[ginky4]

I have an older Compaq Presario 4784. It is about 5 years old. Is it true that these model Compaqs have the Bios on the Hard Drive and not the motherboard? What happens when you go to replace the hard drive? I want to upgrade my hard drive to a Western Digital 20 gig? What will happen as far as having a Bios?

 

[Sugadaddy]

I really doubt the BIOS is on the HD. Who told you that?

 

[ginky4]

I emailed Compaq about upgrading to a new bigger hard drive. Here is what they said. " The Bios of the Compaq 4784 is stored on the hard drive, not on the system board. In order to have BIOS when you upgrade to a larger hard drive, you will need to have Softpaq 2141 and Softpaq 10997. These downloads create bootable floppy diskettes. The first will put the BIOS on your hard drive; the second will upgrade the BIOS on your hard drive. " I can't believe that this could be true. Has anybody had any experience here? Let me know.

 

[Drekce]

some manufacturers do put the bios on the Hard Drive. It allows them 2 things...

1. Pretty pictures like logos and such in the bios screens.

2. Reduced cost...Rom chips are much more expensive then placing the bios on the HD

I don't know whether or not your compaq is one of those, but it is possible!

 

[ObiDon]

I had a Compaq 486 system that required a couple of boot floppies to get to some bios-like screens. I had to use them when I added/removed memory and other stuff like that.

 

[4824guy]

You can upgrade and add a larger HD by using the HD's bios overlay software from the HD manufactorer. There is no need to update the PC's bios to get over the 8gig barrier on older PC's. Or, you can purchase a PCI ata IDe controller card, those will work also.

 

[ginky4]

I purchased a Western Digital 20 gig hard drive. It came with a floppy disk called Data Lifeguard Tools. Supposedly this software will correct all types of BIOS problems. It is also supposed to have an ATA manager on it. I wonder how well this software will work.

 

[MJT2k]

I have seen a lot of these systems from Compaq. In my opinion they really suck. If you just replace the current HD with the new one it should work as long as the part of the BIOS that is on the Motherboadr sees it. You don't need the HD part of the BIOS to use the system but if you want to or need to change settiong then you need that part of the BIOS. Compaq has now stopped putting the BIOS on the HD becasue they are now using "Standard Hardware" as in ATX cases and Motherboards.

 

[Paulson]

The BIOS on all compaq's is on the hard drive. It's on a partition, and is unrecognized by windows, but if you do FDISK, you'll see 15megs or so of space are reserved for the bios.

This isn't the case on the newer models, but I know that's the way it works on the older comps...

 

[ginky4]

So what do you guys think? Will I be able to put the new 20 gig Western Digital in, format , and install the operating system? Do you think it will recognize the hard drive as 20 gig or will I have to use the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Software to get it to recognize the full 20gig?

 

[Paulson]

You'll have to use the Western Digital Software to get it to be recognized as 20 gigs.

My Presario 4712 only recognized 8.4 gigs when I tried to install a 15 gig hard drive.

 

[LukFilm]

Yep, Paulson is right, it's on the hard drive.

 

[ginky4]

Do you use that Western Digital Data Lifeguard software right after you install the new hard drive and power up?

 

[Paulson]

I'm sure what you need to do is on the disk that came with your WD hard drive.

I have the same disk, only I have a 40 gig WD hard drive. Haven't had to put it in a comp that doesn't recognize more than 8.4 though...

 

[Sugadaddy]

Didn't know that, weird... It should work wirh a new drive, just use the software if it doesn't see the whole HD, and install the BIOS software like the Compaq guy said..

 

[Paulson]

If you put in a new hard drive, compaq expects you to do the "quick restore" and install the OS back onto their computer.

If you don't (hey, who wants win 95 anymore? ) you wont be able to use the bios, unless you head to compaq's website and download the bios onto a floppy and put it on the mbr of the compaq before installing a new operating system...

Right now, my presario 4712 doesn't have a bios (don't know how it's running) but it doesn't.

oh well It wasn't good for anything anyways.

 

[MJT2k]

To find out if your system will support the 20GB drive with out the Data Lifeguard EZ-BIOS just install the drive, boot to a floppy with fdisk, run fdisk and try to make a partition. If the system only supports a 8.4GB drive that is the largest partition it will make and you won't see the rest. You might have to make the partition and then reboot and rerun fdisk. You might also try just viewing the partition info (option #4, I think). If it doesn't see the whole drive then use the Data Lifeguard tools disk to install the EZ-BIOS overlay software.

 

[MJT2k]

<< Right now, my presario 4712 doesn't have a bios (don't know how it's running) but it doesn't. >>



You don't need the BIOS on the HD. There is one on the Motherboard the lets you boot the system. If part of the BIOS was not on the Motherboard you would not be able to boot. In fact I think the actual BIOS in all on the Motherboard, the stuff on the HD is only so you can make changes to the settings. That GUI they use takes alot of space.

 

[Paulson]

Ah...

ya, it's a fugly gui too, and it sucked

I figured there was a bios on the mainboard, but wasn't exactly sure where...

 

[Recneps]

You have to love those COMCRAP bios were you can change one setting and the damn thing eats up 15 megs of space. I've got a quick question about old BIOS when formating a hard drive in my case it was a 45 giger with fat16 and creat 23 partions of aabout 2 gig a peace do you need to have a BIOS that can see a drive larger then 8.5 gig?

 

[Paulson]

No.

You just get relay software and it overrides the 8.4 gig limit on the motherboard...

 

[Gunbuster]

&quot;The BIOS on all compaq's is on the hard drive&quot; WRONG

Compaq did it for like 1 freakin model line and people think they still do it

It was around 1997!! Welcome to 2001 they dont do it anymore

 

[Paulson]

<< The BIOS on all compaq's is on the hard drive. It's on a partition, and is unrecognized by windows, but if you do FDISK, you'll see 15megs or so of space are reserved for the bios.

This isn't the case on the newer models, but I know that's the way it works on the older comps... >>



Ok, so I screwed up the bold part, but if you would have bothered to read the rest of my post, it clearly states that on the newer models it doesn't have it anymore (newer meaning 2 years to present)

Damn...

 

[Sophia]

Well, my experience is that it may or may not accept a drive larger than 8.4 gigs. I tried the same with an IBM 20 gigger in a Deskpro 2000 233mmx and it would NOT accept that drive regardless of every permutation of settings I tried (bios overlay or not, 15 vs. 16 cylinders, different ide channels, etc.), yet it refused to recognize either 8.4 or 20 Gigs. Of course, in the end the problem could have just been my inexperience, but I took it as a sign from above to upgrade.

You don't need the Compaq partition on the hard drive--I ran a dual boot linux + win98se once without that particular partition. If you so desire, you could add the partition to the hard drive using the appropriate softpaq when you setup the drive. You can also access the same stuff solely from floppies (download the correct softpaq), although that method is a wee little bit slow.

I've been less than impressed with Compaq's technical support for technical questions (replacement parts come quick, though). Perhaps try the Compaq support forums for more user accounts.

 

[mackstann]

oh my god....i thought compaqs were horrible before this...i think i need my inhaler.....