I have a 80 GB PATA HDD (2003 Western Digital Caviar WD800 LBA) which is not recognized by my very old computer (Pentium 2 / Asus P2L97 motherboard).

I thought it was due to the [partitioning](https://superuser.com/questions/1724339/copying-with-ddrescue-resulted-in-incorrect-fat32-partitioning) of the disk but probably this is due to the BIOS limiting the HDD size, as suggested [here](https://dfarq.homeip.net/bios-hard-drive-limits/).

This disc is the result of a backup of only 3.2 GB so I can reduce its size to 4 GB

I found the [motherboard manual](https://web.archive.org/web/20220603074715id_/https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/slot1/440lx/p2l97/p2l97-205.pdf) and set the MODE to LBA or AUTO, as suggested I tried to enter a custom drive type in BIOS and max out all three values for cylinders, heads, and sectors per track:

[![cylinders, heads, and sectors per track](https://i.stack.imgur.com/p7qkD.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/p7qkD.png)

I tried different values: 785/128/63 (3241MB), 8192/16/63 (4228MB), 394/255/63 (3240MB), but without success:

[![without success](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2qBkK.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/2qBkK.png)

I was looking for a [drive overlay](http://vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=19) and downloaded Data LifeGuard Tools (WD) but it is an executable to launch from an Windows OS.

Do you have any suggestions for getting the HDD recognized by the BIOS? or an idea to install the drive overlay on the MBR of the HDD from SystemRescue?

EDIT: I updated the BIOS to the last version (it was hard to find a floppy disk that works) with this result:

[![result](https://i.stack.imgur.com/a3H8z.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/a3H8z.png)

That seems good but the computer crashes on the following screen without an error message::

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TYQLB.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/TYQLB.png)

EDIT: As before, in BIOS, I'm trying :

* to use auto detectes geometry and auto/LBA mode
* to force the HDD type in BIOS and set the TYPE to User and MODE to LBA or AUTO but without succes
* to swith "ECP DMA Select" from "3" to "disabled" with same "error" (LBA, UDMA 2)
* to swith "Parallel Port Mode" from "ECP + EPP" to "Normal" with same "error" (LBA, UDMA 2)
* to swith "IDE Ultra DMA" from "Auto" to "disable" with different "error" (LBA, MODE 4)

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uXZ2L.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/uXZ2L.png)

I also plugged the HDD into another computer: auto-detection in BIOS is OK
[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VSfe3.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/VSfe3.png)

I will try to run OnTrack Disk Manager 9.57