Non-detected HDD and bootup

[Movi]

HI!

Ive came across a interesting riddle to solve and find that maybe GRUB may 
help it but i want to know if it will before i actually do it.

For some time now im modifying a pretty old machine 
(Celeron400+32mbRAM+4,3GB) to make it work as a Linux client.
After some upgrades (added 128MB, a 6channell snd-card, a 40GB U6 and a 
GF2GTS) it seems that the mainboard doesnt like HDD's which are bigger than 
32GB. It's a ACORP ZX81, which as far as i know has no BIOS update to fix 
this. Right now i can either tell the BIOS not to look at the drive and NOT 
post it in the IDE devices (Linux probes thoseby himself anyway,so does 
WinXP) or tell the U6 to manifest itself as a 32GB. The first solution is 
OK as long as i don't plan to boot of it (Linux is on the 4,3GB), but the 
problem is i want to install Windows XP on the big HD. The other solution 
makes me lose my last partition :/.

So in essence im asking this: can GRUB boot off an OS from a HD which isn't 
detected by the BIOS? I tested with LILO and im 100% he can't, i don't know 
about other bootmanagers, but if there's one like that i would be happy to 
recieve feedback about the problem and possibilities to fix it.

With regards
Movi