Hello! A while ago I spent a whole night but managed to install a new hard drive (80Gb Western Digital) on a very old mother board (ASUS P/I-P55T2P4 about 1997). It took a while to figure out to partition the HD to have the first partition of the 2GB size (the second was 78GB and was recognized by Win98). Now, same hard drive same mother board, the HD is not recognized. The bios freezes up when detecting the HD. Before it could let me boot from the floppy with Partition Magic 7.0 and I could mess around with the partitions, now it won't get pass HD initializasion part. I don't remember the seting in the bios for the HD. Is there any rule that help install new large HDs on an old MB? The HD is still recognized and works on the new MB. Any help would be appriciated. Thanks a million!

The only way I know of using an 80GB on a machine that old is to use a drive overlay or an add in controller card that supports the drive. Are you saying that Fdisk recognised that 80GB drive correctly and allowed partitioning it into a 2GB primary and 78GB extended partition?

Yes it did. And I just figured out the solution to my current problem. I use an alternative HD jumper setting. It allowes me to bood (would freez in bios before) and i booted the WD Data Lifeguard Tools diskette... I did purchase the PCI controller card and it recognizes the HD (it's got its own bios) but it doesn't go anywhere after that. My floppy drive won't start reading my system floppy (Data lifeguard).. So, my bios doesn't accept the controller. I've been trying to solve the for a week. I guess I will have to go back to the original 2 + 78 partitioning (if the new Lifeguard tool won't let me use the whole 80gb). Thanks for your reply!!!

Lifeguard IS a drive overlay. Didn't the PCI controller card come with any software? Both of your solutions are the same ones I mentioned. I don't think you need any alternate jumper settings when using the WD overlay.

My PCI controller came by itself OEM. The website didn't offer much either.. Data Lifeguard Tools allow me to partition to 2Gb and 78Gb.. That's what I'm doing .. Do you think once I install windows 98 and download drivers for my PCI controller than I will be able to connect another new hard drive and use it with the faster speed? Thanks for your help! The computer is actually my friend's.. an old guy who doesn't want to spend money on a new comp. I got me a new rig (part by part) and it's almost top of the line. :) It's just interesting to 'go back in time' and do some 'archeological' research :)