Florida TG motherboard with a 40gb hdd
 

I am attempting to build a system by cannibalizing from 2 separate boxes. The 40.0gb hdd, cdrom, and fdd are from a Gateway 2000 that ran on a Pentium 2. The second is the motherboard and cpu from an Emachines 433i. The motherboard is a Florida TG and the cpu is a Celeron 433mhz. Apparently, this motherboard will not accept the 40.0gb ide hard drive. The motherboard will only accept hdd's to a max capacity of like 8.6gb. I think this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard but this is my predicament. Is there a way to update the motherboard's bios to be able to accept this 40.0gb Quantum hdd? I am attempting to load Mandrake 10.0 Official onto this newly cleaned hdd that originally had Win XP Professional installed on it. So far the mobo isn't recognizing the hdd. I've even tried loading Redhat 6.1 but that didn't work. (LOL I had a couple rum and Pepsi's tonight) I realize that it isn't the OS's that are creating the problem: Its the dumb Intel based mobo that won't accept the hdd. What to do, what to do???????

system so far:
generic box with 350w ps
Florida TG mainboard with onboard audio and video (MATX form factor)
Intel Celeron 433

P.S. I can barely find any specs on this board so I don't know if I can even connect it up for my front usb's or the audio cables that are in the box so if anyone knows of any website for this board for the specs and/or (especially) the wiring diagram then that would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
jmill_1
email: jmill_1@sbcglobal.net

Call me dumb; call me obnoxious; just don't call me late for sex!

I can sympathize with you. I have a cognac+ mobo from a eMachine and info is very hard to find on the net. And contacting Trigem for support via email has been futile. The best site that I have found for info regarding eMachine mobos is at The Unofficial eMachines Help Site.

Florida TG mobo info
Florida TG manual + other downloads

Now, regarding you hard drive issue, you can either try updating the BIOS, via flashing your current BIOS (which, I doubt might help the hard drive size issue...but it might) or purchase a PCI controller card (Maxtor/Highpoint works well with linux) and attach your hard drive to it. Since the controller card has its own BIOS, it will definitely solve the hard drive limitation issue. One other thing is using a drive overlay software from the manufacturer, if one is provided, but I don't have any experience with that so your guess on how to get it to work with linux is as good as mine.

Edit: I found another site with your mobo manual...don't know if it's the same one as the one I posted. Edit: I found another site with the manual for you mobo...don't know if it the same as the one I posted. http://www.motherboards.org/files/ma...Florida-TG.pdf

Well, thank you Estatik, for finding the manual for the TG mobo. As far as the other 2 links go, I found them and they are of no use for me. They won't work. It would seem that the only way I can bypass this predesigned flaw is to install a small hdd within the mobo's bios parameters and make it primary master and then piggyback this 40.0gb hdd and make it the primary slave. I have a friend in Canada who found this site for me and it does sound feesible to fake this dumb mobo into thinking that we have not bypassed its intended flaw! The URL is: http://members.tripod.com/~swlchris/Linux.html

I do hate how these large conglomerate corporations such as M$ and, in this case, Intel design flaws purposefully into hardware so as to force people into eventually forking out more money to buy more than they need to rather than just a simple upgrade!

Currently, I am running on a homemade box that works perfectly. Again, a generic box, Chieftec 350w dual fan psu, Abit NF7 socket A, Amd Athlon XP 2600+ (Thorton core), running on Mandrake 10.0. Granted, I still have some flaws in it, such as I can't burn DVD's (this flaw is in me not the box as I am not as apt with the commandline as I need to be)

Now this other box is for a young lady at my job that I promised I would upgrade for her by taking Win XP off and reinstalling MDK 10.0, which leads us back to the original problem. I do have a small 6.4gb hdd that I think I may attempt to place in her box and see if the master/slave trick does work. Let's hope.

In the meantime, I hope that the above link may help you and any others with this same problem.

jmill_1
email: jmill_1@sbcglobal.net

Call me dumb; call me obnoxious; just don't call me late for sex!

You're welcome. But you couldn't download the manual? Hmm, the links work fine for me. Well, here's a direct link to the manual download:

http://www.e4allinc.info/dir3/phfile...lorida-TGA.zip


It seems that he used a drive overlay on the bigger hard drive. From what I've read, it not that reliable. But, who knows...it might just work.

Well, I wouldn't necessarily blame M$ or Intel, it's basically the fault of the designer of the mobo (Trigem) and the proprietary company (eMachines) that mass produce entry-level machines with low-end components for the mass consumer. I mean, it is an older mobo and one would have to expect to pay a bit more for a piece of hardware to upgrade than what the main componets are valued at now (PCI controller card...$30.00. Florida TG mobo...$10.00). Seen what the price of PC100/PC133 SDRAM are going for nowadays?

Are you using cli to burn DVDs? Have you tried k3b? I believe it needs the dvd+rw-tools to burn DVDs correctly. I'm still in the CD-R/W era. LOL.

Hope all goes smoothly with getting her box set up.

No Estatik, I did download the manual and I will be able to use it to wire up the box, if I get it loaded with an O/S. It's the other 2 links that I have already found and can't find a use for. The flash bios and the other link with it.

Thanks again,

jmill_1
email: jmill_1@sbcglobal.net

Call me dumb; call me obnoxious; just don't call me late for sex!