Hard Drive Issue
 

I have an ASUS P2-99 motherboard and I'm pretty the BIOS for this board won't allow a hard drive greater than 32gb. I'm attempting to connect an 80gb Maxtor drive to it anyway because I had it sitting around and this is the only comp I have I can use it on. I downloaded the Maxtor software that was suggested and I used it to get around this and I can make it into Windows (I'm running a dual boot of XP and Mandrake 10) where the drive is recognized at full size. My problem is that when I restart the comp, it hangs again, and I have to go through the trouble of using the Maxtor program each time in order to fool the BIOS on the size of the drive. Is there any way I can make this permanent so I won't have to spend 10 minutes to start up the comp each time? Would the Windows version of the program, which I haven't tried yet, be able to fix this problem because it seems that once I go into Windows and then restart, this setting is forgotten?

Sounds like a updated bios might help, so look for a new version of the bios on the manufacturers website and flash the bios.

You can use the software, but it can lead to troubles in the future if you swap the drive elsewhere and want to use the data. The really best way to do it is get a cheap PCI IDE raid card and plug the drive into that. It has it's own bios and the drive is partitioned and formatted as normal. The card is a much better way to go than the software, but that's just MHO...

I have the newest version of the BIOS for the board, and the issue still exists. As far as getting a card, I know I could do this, but I was wondering if there was a way I could just use the software and not have to keep using it everytime I restart?

It should work with the software. I've used it in the past and it was a one off thing. After setup it just booted as normal and ran like that for a couple of years... Then I upgraded and the trouble started :) Maybe the software ain't so hot these days???

Is it possible the Windows version of the software would be more affective in keeping me from having to use the software everytime I boot up? Because I've only tried the not Windows version that's on floppy so far, but I know a Windows version is out there.

my recommendation is to use this. actually my suggestion would be that it's time for a new board, but if you want to continue using that one, this will give you expandability that will allow you to do much more than your current setup. and this card can handle drives larger than 137GB, i've got 2 250GB SATA drives on one of my work boxes.