I have a Compaq 486 mobo that had no hard disk. I got a free hard disk from a friend, and that died on me in the middle of installing MS-DOS.
What good (and cheap) alternatives are there for these old and unreliable hard disks?
The mobo does not use LBA, instead it uses the old CHS formatting, so I don't know how well it would work with converters or solid-state media.
CF 2 IDE adaptor + old <512MB CF card.
Cheap, fast and reliable.
There are other options too. But generally more expensive. I am using these in my systems:
mpe wrote on 2020-04-23, 21:45:CF 2 IDE adaptor + old <512MB CF card.
Cheap, fast and reliable.
Thanks for the reply, but I have this one nagging question, how would I set the CHS values for CF cards. Sorry if it sounds stupid, I'm new to the whole retro community.
Use <512MB cards and you'll have no issues. BIOS should detect those automatically. If older with no detection you can detect on a newer systems and enter on the old. They'll all be the same.
512M card is usually 993 cylinders, 16 heads & 63 sectors.
mpe wrote on 2020-04-23, 21:49:Use <512MB cards and you'll have no issues. BIOS should detect those automatically. If older with no detection you can detect on a newer systems and enter on the old. They'll all be the same.
512M card is usually 993 cylinders, 16 heads & 63 sectors.
Thank you! I just couldn't wrap my head around that .
The flash controller should emulate a user specified drive geometry. Just make sure C*H*S*512 is less than the storage capacity of your device (in bytes). As noted, you may have to obey specific limits on those parameters in order to fit under a hardware or BIOS limit.
https://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/Large-Disk-4.html
All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder
mpe wrote on 2020-04-23, 21:49:Use <512MB cards and you'll have no issues. BIOS should detect those automatically. If older with no detection you can detect on a newer systems and enter on the old. They'll all be the same.
512M card is usually 993 cylinders, 16 heads & 63 sectors.
So there is a bit of a problem. I can't find any 512MB CF cards that are reasonably priced. Will 1-4GB cards also work? I once saw someone put a 2.5GB hdd in one of these.
you can get industrial SLC cards on ebay for ~$5 usually
I got one new from amazon for 8€ once cause I needed it quickly.
imi wrote on 2020-04-24, 14:31:you can get industrial SLC cards on ebay for ~$5 usually
I got one new from amazon for 8€ once cause I needed it quickly.
Yes, but I'm asking if it is possible to install more than 512MB, since the mobo does support more.
jackmtech wrote on 2020-04-24, 18:16:imi wrote on 2020-04-24, 14:31:you can get industrial SLC cards on ebay for ~$5 usually
I got one new from amazon for 8€ once cause I needed it quickly.Yes, but I'm asking if it is possible to install more than 512MB, since the mobo does support more.
Drive overlay is the answer....
Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....
My blog: http://to9xct.blogspot.dk
My YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/brostenen
001100 010010 011110 100001 101101 110011
well you just answered your own question I guess 😁
if your BIOS supports larger drives I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.
some vendors even give you the correct settings (Page 95):
https://www.verical.com/datasheet/sandisk-fla … 388-5045306.pdf
If using DOS better to stay <512M. Bigger drives are possible with various workarounds, but you might face some compatibility issues, problems with booting, etc. Even when you can get it working you might be experiencing weird issues.
Such as I recently discovered that the default Windows 3.1 IDE driver (WDCTRL) can't enable 32-bit disk access on a hard drive with more than 1023 cylinders. I didn't know that.
Small cards sometimes came cheap with old digital cameras.
