I've never upgraded a BIOS before. Does it involve buying a chip and replacing and old one, or just running a program?

I'm looking to upgrade an old Compaq Prolinea 5100 to get past the old limit of, what was it, 4GB of HD space, so I can use my 30GB hard drive in it.

Any information on this is welcome, and thanks in advance!

In old computers it involved buying a new chip. In new computers it involves running a program, typically from a boot floppy. In some new computers it is also done from the bios setup.

Thanks. Hm, does a 486 ring a bell to anyone as "old"? =p.

Hm my Mobo made a tool to install a new BIOS onto the system while still in Windows.  Anyway, why do you need to upgrade it?

Read @ post. I need to use a big harddrive, and its not supported.

A 486 is somewhere between. Could require chip switching or could have flashable BIOS. I have seen both.

I couldn't find any information on this. Anyone more patient/bored than me wanna look? ^_^

Well I'd first check that there is an upgrade for that model. Might want to check your manufacturers site.

[url]http://h18007.www1.hp.com/support/files/prolinea/us/locate/7_15.html#0[/url]

No idea if it supports larger hard drives, but it is the latest BIOS I found... If that does not work, buy a separate IDE card with BIOS on it.

Thanks so much Adron! *downloads*

EDIT -
Poopy, it was already up to date. Oh well.