EZ Bios problem

[phun_key]

Aside from the one I am using I also have an older computer with an AOpen AX59Pro board and 2 old WD Caviar HD's. I cannot get this computer to start again as I have disconnected and reconnected HD's while EZ Bios still installed. Now the m'board does not recognise either and I cannot reformat them.I can see them when added to my newer system and neither is faulty. I can use both normally then but EZ Bios writes directly to BIOS doesn't it? How can I get these HD's to function normally again?
Any advice would be well appreciated.

[kgburns]

May be a dumb question, but have you tried resetting the bios using the jumper?

[phun_key]

Thx for prompt reply kgburns. No, it wasn't a silly question, but doesn't work. On my newer machine I have no problem as drive has been checked with Partition Magic, formatted and works fine as a slave. There is a 2mb section at the beginning which is ignored by PM and my newer machine but it prevents drive being recognised as a master. Guess I will try to set old drive as master on new machine unless s.o. has a better idea. I'd rather not though. I still want to know what the problem is.
Any other ideas, kg or anybody else ?
Thx phun_key.

[Wiggo]

The 2MB section of the HDD that ya can't touch is the drive's cache but have ya checked that it's not the actual IDE controller of that old mobo that's gone to lunch on ya? :?:

[phun_key]

Thx Wiggo
A part of the Datalifeguard, EZ Bios setup included the opportunity to enable or disable the Ultra ATA 33/66/100 capability on Western Digital EIDE drives. You have reminded me of this. How can I test if it is the IDE controller at fault or the soft?

[Wiggo]

One way would be to install a CD-ROM drive on that channel and see if that gets detected.

[phun_key]

Thx again Wiggo, but yeh, the CD ROM is recognised on that channel using same lead. I have formatted with FAT and NTFS partitions on newer system with XP Home and both work fine with HD as slave. When I attempt to boot up newly formatted HD or with operating system installed on older AOpen board.....nada.
Anyone else with any more ideas ? Wiggo ? :shrug:
I have downloaded a piece of soft from Western Digital that will write a bunch of 0's over partition. Apparently this is only way to remove EZ Bios as it writes direct to BIOS. There used to be a proggie called WDClear also, but I'm going to try dlgdiag28 which is a dos program that must be loaded onto floppy. I'll let you know how I get on.

[Bugman]

Hello there!

I have used EZ Bios myself several times, and it did much to help me, I have to say. What it actually does is writes to the MBR (Master boot record) of each of the drives it is installed on. In this record, it tells the drives to look to the rest of the software, so you can run say an 8 gig drive on a machine that wont see anything larger than 2 gigs.

I think you have several options here. The first is to plug your drives into the old system (preferably) and boot off of the disk that has EZ bios on it. There should be an option within the menu that pops up to remove the software entirely (if that is what you want, I assume). If you dont have it, I believe it can be downloaded from the webpage with other drivers and utilities from the HD maker.

The last option (that may or may not work) is to boot to a floppy and get to a basic DOS box. This should get you around booting to ez bios. (If not, I think you can hold the control key down to boot to floppy...) Once you get on this screen type format /mbr . This should format your master boot record, and hopefully get rid of your problem.

Keep us posted!

(And if anyone thinks/knows Im incorrect about any of this, please let me know...)

~Bug

[Mr. C]

Actually, EZ-BIOS is a drive overlay and will not write to the system's BIOS itself.

I know that Maxtor's software for instance has a removal option for EZ-BIOS. I'm truly not certain that Western Digital's DLG Tools has the same feature though:(

If it does, they do a fine job of hiding that information on their site.

[phun_key]

Hello all
thx for responses Bugman, Mr.C - I've already tried to format /mbr - nada

Why is the soft so difficult to find Mr.C

I installed dlgdiag28 which is the version WD recommend for older HD's onto a bootable floppy, booted her up, Dr Caldera DOS started and I was told to press "Enter". In responce the system threw a critical error and refused to do anything further.
So I downloaded the latest version of DataLifeguard11. HD was recognised then I was told that version was not suitable for older drives. I was directed back to WD to download dlgdiag28.

DataLifeguard11 suite replaces EZ-Drive which is proggie I originally installed to compensate for larger HD's. I never even actually needed it but naively installed it at the time through a lack of understanding.

I think I know why soft maybe so difficult to find !

I'll see if my copy of dlgdiag is faulty by reinstalling onto a different floppy, but I don't think that is the answer, and anyway I am more interested in understanding problem and finding a non-proprietry solution.

thx for all your help. It warms a newbies heart :wave:
I have been waiting for a response from Western Digital for 2 days so far.:thumbs do

[phun_key]

I checked out maxblast 3 as well which is Maxtor's equivalent and the manufacturers of my latest HD but it will only work on a system with one of their own HD's already installed. Maybe if I whip that HD out of my nice new machine and install it in my old system alongside the old WD Caviar......

Hope this post can be a definitive guide to resolving such problems with *******, cos I can't find a decent layman's explanation.

:thumb: Peace

[Wiggo]

Have ya tried usin' a 98 startup boot disk and fdiskin' the drive clean of all partitions and maybe "fdisk /mbr" as well? Also check partition information (option 4 in fdisk) to see if there's a non-logical partition there to delete. :?:

[phun_key]

I actually have 2 WD HD's, both with EZ-Drive installed. I want to use them with an old AOpen mobo onto which I installed EZ-Drive for them (unnecessarily) a few years ago. The AOpen mobo doesn't recognise either HD at all.

On my newer ASUS they both pass WD's own diagnostic test. I have written zero's all over them and Partition Magic says they're both fine. There are definitely no other logical partitions - just the 2mb buffer.

I apologise if anyone reading all this is suffering fatigue.

I still haven't heard from Western Digital - 3 days now.

Pero caramba, que hay ! :bounce2:

[Bugman]

This is definitely a strange thing.

Can I ask some more stupid questions, just to see? Did you make sure you put them both back in the old machine the same way? As in with the master and slave correct? Is the BIOS set to automatically detect, or do you need to input the drive information into it?

I know, you have probably already checked, but I figured I would ask.

~Bug

[phun_key]

Hello Bugman

I have tried putting them back in different master/slave and CS arrangements. The bios is set to auto, but you have a point as the overlay is to compensate for larger HD,s and I vaguely remember having to mess around with lba during installation. I will try setting up drives manually.

While messing around with Dos I received a warning to say version was incompatible. I don,t know if it's relevant.

I am sure problem is with EZ-Drive soft.