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Adventures of a poor memory...

geneb

geneb

Veteran Member
Joined
Aug 19, 2003
Messages
525
Location
Graham, WA USA
I post this for you guys to laugh at. It's just too good. :)

I got the AT re-assembled this evening after getting it all cleaned out. I dropped a 3GB IDE drive in it and booted OpenDOS 7 on it.

Formatting the drive gives me 50MB. WTF?

I spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out why on earth that drive (or any of the others!) wouldn't give me an accurate size.

It finally dawns on me that with a machine this old, you have to set the drive type for the fixed disk! No problem, right? Not a chance. :)

The setup disk I have steadfastly tells me that type 47 is reserved and won't allow me to change it. It's a type 1 board with an older ROM revision, so I'm pretty much SOL at this point.

I've got some new EPROMs coming so I'll just burn a set using the AMI BIOS images that have been mentioned here before. Hopefully they'll work with a type 1 board. :)

g.
 
geneb said:
I post this for you guys to laugh at. It's just too good. :)

I got the AT re-assembled this evening after getting it all cleaned out. I dropped a 3GB IDE drive in it and booted OpenDOS 7 on it.

Formatting the drive gives me 50MB. WTF?

I spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out why on earth that drive (or any of the others!) wouldn't give me an accurate size.

It finally dawns on me that with a machine this old, you have to set the drive type for the fixed disk! No problem, right? Not a chance. :)

The setup disk I have steadfastly tells me that type 47 is reserved and won't allow me to change it. It's a type 1 board with an older ROM revision, so I'm pretty much SOL at this point.

I've got some new EPROMs coming so I'll just burn a set using the AMI BIOS images that have been mentioned here before. Hopefully they'll work with a type 1 board. :)

g.
Click to expand...

Uhhmm, I have a 16-bit IDE controller perfect for the AT: You set the hard drive as Type 1 in CMOS, and the controller gets the parameters from the drive itself. Yes, it probably has the 512Mb limit for its onboard BIOS extension. Probably wouldn't work with the SIIG AT boards (my versions don't have the IDE controller portions populated, just another BIOS extension) either, that break that limit on the later AT-compatible clones.
 
Going with the AMI BIOS is certainly a lot better than the stock AT BIOS, but you're still going to be limited to just 528MB. If you want to be able to use the entire drive, you will need to run Disk Manager no matter how you do it.
 
AC, that's what I figured - unfortunately the DM disk that I have just freezes the AT and doesn't do anything - both copies that I have do this. (It's got EZ BIOS, etc on it as well)

It makes me wonder if Disk Manager can work properly on a 640k 6Mhz AT...

g.
 
Anonymous Coward said:
Going with the AMI BIOS is certainly a lot better than the stock AT BIOS, but you're still going to be limited to just 528MB. If you want to be able to use the entire drive, you will need to run Disk Manager no matter how you do it.
Click to expand...


Hmm... I have a card here that is a 8-Bit ISA. It has a BIOS planted on to it. It says that when you put it in, it lifts the 528MB limit. It's name is "DTC EIDE abd SCSI BIOS upgrade kit."
-Provides any system with LBA support for EIDE drives > 528MB.
-Includes DTC1181 BIOS adapter and is compatable with any 16-Bit IDE or VESA IDE controller
-Includes EIDE Performance Drivers to speed up data transfers

Not veering too :OT:, could I put this in a Packard Bell 486, or an IBM PC XT and have a larger hard drive? That is, larger than 528MB?
And no, the card is not for sale. *in creepy lord of the rings voice* My precious....

--Ryan
 
Yzzerdd said:
Hmm... I have a card here that is a 8-Bit ISA. It has a BIOS planted on to it. It says that when you put it in, it lifts the 528MB limit. It's name is "DTC EIDE abd SCSI BIOS upgrade kit."
-Provides any system with LBA support for EIDE drives > 528MB.
-Includes DTC1181 BIOS adapter and is compatable with any 16-Bit IDE or VESA IDE controller
-Includes EIDE Performance Drivers to speed up data transfers

Not veering too :OT:, could I put this in a Packard Bell 486, or an IBM PC XT and have a larger hard drive? That is, larger than 528MB?...
Click to expand...

Even though the adapter is 8-bit (a ROM BIOS extention requires no more), you would need an IDE card that does IDE in a pretty standard way (Read that an 8-bit implementation may not be supported). The SIIG cards I refered to are the same sort of device (although on a 16-bit adapter, with the IDE controller/connection areas unpopulated). With one on a PS/2 Model 35 (an AT bus system with planar IDE, but a bit different IDE design apparently) the hard drive even suspiciously died rather quickly.

And strictly speaking, the 528Mb limitation is only with IDE, not SCSI, so you can have a 1Gb or 2 on a system with no problems...
 
I second (or third) the disk manager route.

No extra hardware required, big hard drives are totally doable.
My 286, 386 and 486 all are running 10gig hard drives with the hard drive set to type 1 (any type will actually work though) in setup, the drive boots, loads the DM driver and the 528MB barrier is broken.

The version of DM I have only works with seagate drives though. I was thinking of doing a little hacking on it so that it would work with any drive manufacturer, although I suspect there's a universal version out there somewhere.

-jeff!
 
EZ Drive (Western Digital)

EZ Drive (Western Digital)

I have a copy of EZ Drive version 8.01w which appears to be badged (but not necessarily locked to) Western Digital hard drives.

Any use?

Paul.
 
Disk Manager should definetly work in your AT. I've ran it in both 6 and 8MHz ATs with original BIOSes. However, I believe it took me several tries to find a copy that worked. Like you said, some of them may be locked down to certain drive models. I would try looking for some older copies of DM that were provided from the manufacturer of the drive currently installed.
 
Guys, I have a few different versions of Disk Manager that I got over the years (can't even remember where). I haven't tested them, so I have no clue if they work... But if you want them, just send me a message.
 
Just a small warning. The programs which you are talking about are covered by copyright, and are commercial in nature. Be mindful of this when you discuss passing these programs around. I know it's intended to be helpful, but you never know when somebody will decide to exercise their legal right to cause you pain. ;-0
 
Oh, LOL... thanks for the info, I had no idea. Sorry if I caused any trouble :( I vaguely remember downloading some of them for free from the HDD manufacturers' websites actually... so I guess I just assumed they were freely available. Again, I apologize.
 
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