elianda wrote:Be sure to have the HDD in CHS-Mode in the BIOS if you prepare it for the 486 system. The other way around usually won't calculate right (LBA -> CHS).
This seems to be an early 486 board. There are no such options like LBA available. I can set type 47 and either enter the parameters by hand or use auto detect. Auto detect actually finds the parameters correctly, but fdisk only sees the 504 MB.
Check how the 486 BIOS-behaves if you set more than 1024 cylinders. You may set it to 1024 even if the HDD has more. (1024 / 16 / 63 ).
I tried that already. I ran the disk with the auto detected correct values. I also tried the bios maximum you mentioned. It makes no difference. With ghost, it works, without ghost, it won't boot. The partition is accessible both ways.
Make sure you use the same setting when preparing the HDD even in another PC.
Since I have a burner replace the 5.25 floppy drive, I will backup to CD, probably using ghost. Haven't tried it yet. Digging out the HDD is too much of a job here. There are only two bays total, and they are taken up by CD and 3.5 inch drive.
fdisk might have a problem if you want to make d: a primary boot drive (probably C: is already).
Better make a bootdisk with the […]
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fdisk might have a problem if you want to make d: a primary boot drive (probably C: is already).
Better make a bootdisk with the system, sys.com and fdisk.exe.
As d: is formatted with /s after putting it in the 486 boot from disk. Then activate the partition with fdisk, do a sys a: c: and a fdisk /mbr
Writing boot code is usually more reliable in the computer where it should boot.
In the past, the sys command always worked. Next time I might try the extra commands. I used ghost, resized to 252 MB and then added a second partition with fdisk. Except for the 32bit file access, it seems to work. Win 3.11 uses its own 32 bit driver, which could fail for various reasons. EIDE may be one of them. The large HDD is much faster, even without 32 bit access.
About the noise - simply use a newer HDD. It doesn't hurt the HDD if you just use the first 504 MB. All P-ATA HDDs should still support CHS.
You can be very proud of me - that is exactly what I did yesterday. The WD 2.5 GB drive is only used up to 504 MB. But it is rather quiet and much faster. I have a bunch of 40 GB disks as well, but I burn up the smaller ones first. I am unsure if I ever manage to fill the 504 MB anyway.
My CF cards support DMA fine, I may do benches if interested.
For more luxury there are even 3.5" or 5.25" bays for CF cards. Though I use a adapter directly at the mainboards IDE connector since I usually copy the stuff via LAN.
I have already looked into this: I found an adapter for a back slot. That would faciliate data transfer since the CF card would also fit into my regular machine's card reader.
Can I use a bigger CF card? Can I boot from it? Use ghost? Can I create partitions analogous to a HDD? Like 504 in Fat 16 and the rest in FAT32 or NTFS? And what card do you have?