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Quantum Trailblazer 850AT on a 386 DX 40 motherboard shows only 504 MB in dos.

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First post, by Robin4

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I set up a 850MB hard drive on a 386 40 mhz motherboard. (the motherboard is a Contaq 386 / 486 one a puchased some years ago.

I can setup the hard drive in the bios with the following geometry:

Size: 849 Cyls: 1646 Head: 16 Precomp: 65535 Lzone: 1645 Sector: 63 Mode: Normal (there is no way to set it up on Large or LBA because 386 motherboards dont have them. So this is what i used.

I thought maybe it could used the full size of the disk. ( i know of the 504MB limitation) But it couldnt.

Do i need a later version of FDISK to do so??

Have installed ms-dos version 6.22 on it.. But there is also no way to make a extended partition for the remainder 300MB which should be usable.

Dont want to install a overlay software.

If there is no other way please tell me..

~ At least it can do black and white~

Reply 1 of 4, by BitWrangler

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Strangely enough, limitation means limitation, you're gonna need something like "anydrive" to use all of it.

Edit: Though you can also stick an XT-IDE BIOS in the ROM socket of a Network card or one of those Mini ROM cards wiretap designed.

Unicorn herding operations are proceeding, but all the totes of hens teeth and barrels of rocking horse poop give them plenty of hiding spots.

Reply 4 of 4, by darry

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Robin4 wrote on 2021-09-05, 01:54:

Ok so my only option is to use an LBA controller card like the Promise IDE max?

XTIDE is another option : https://www.xtideuniversalbios.org/ and https://bitbyted.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/xtide-on-a-lan/

or you could use DDO (dynamic drive overlay) software : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_drive_overlay

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