Ultra100 BIOS not installed.

[Dinosaur]

AMD Athlon 1000Mhz, Windows 98 SE, ASUS A7V133, PC133/VC133 Motherboard.

When booting my system, before Windows loads, I get the following message.

Ultra100 BIOS not installed because there are no drives present.

My system seems to be working okay, and all three Hard Discs function.

Is Ultra100 something that might make my drives function better or faster if installed? If so, how do I install it?

Can I forget about the above, as merely informational?

What is Ultra100?


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Gouverneur
Eschew Obfuscation!
If one hundred million people believe a foolish idea, it is still a foolish idea.

[Randy_tx]

I think the bios looks for the new ATA-100 hard drives at startup.....You must not have any of those in your system (they just came out)......But if you add one in the future, your mobo will support it. You might be able to disable that message at startup by going into the bios and look under "Advanced features"...or something like that and turn off ATA100 detection or whatever the name of it is in your bios.

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Put an Electric Screwdriver in my hand and I'm REAL dangerous!

[Dinosaur]

I have very recently manufactured Western Digital 7200rpm IDE drives in my system. I think they are ATA100 Drives. Somehow I think Ultra100 is something else, but I really do not know.

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Gouverneur
Eschew Obfuscation!
If one hundred million people believe a foolish idea, it is still a foolish idea.

[bassvax]

I got the same mobo and cpu...I had that message until I disabled the pci mass staorage controller in the device manager. Of course, I don't use the Promise controller or those IDE channels as of yet {not using a RAID config or multiple HDs). You should be absolutely certain that any HD connected to the IDE channels associated with the Promise controller is indeed ATA 100 (to get that benefit anyway). To answer your question...you could use the Ultrabios to shave a few ms off the access time on your HDs, probably not a noticeable improvement in speed unless you do a lot of media editing or set up a RAID, etc. When you do go to do this make sure you are using the 80 wire (still 40 pin connector though) for the IDE cable. If you are even using ATA 66 drives you are already using 80-wire cable.
Edit: I installed the VIA 4-in-1 drivers and I notice that I have one master boot record, but four boot records...Same with you?
Edit#2: I don't have any exp with using the Ultra100 bios and the Promise controller, but I know these guys can help...its all they talk about is this mobo, ect. www.amdmb.com (http://www.amdmb.com)
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Warning: The info vacuum is ON

[This message has been edited by bassvax (edited 04-12-2001).]

[This message has been edited by bassvax (edited 04-12-2001).]

[Dinosaur]

Thanx,Bassvax. I have stored your post in a file on my hard drive. Since my system is working well now, I am going to leave it as is.

Every time I see the message on system startup, I will remember the file I saved. I might apply your suggestions later.

I do not know how many boot records, I have. I thought I had only one.

BTW: I have two hidden drives on my system, waiting for future setup of a multiple OS configuration. Due to nostalgia, I might install DOS6.22/Win3.11 and OS/2 Warp. Perhaps I might move Windows 98 to one of those partitions when I move on to something else.

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Gouverneur
Eschew Obfuscation!
If one hundred million people believe a foolish idea, it is still a foolish idea.

[Randy_tx]

Good ole WARP........man I loved OS2 http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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Will XP save Me ?

[bassvax]

This post in aforementioned AMDMB forum is more specific to your situation: http://www.amdmb.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=29586
Good luck http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Warning: The info vacuum is ON