Hello!

Over the weekend I got a 486DX4-100Mhz on VLB mobo. I wanted to do some benchmarks on it and to install video drivers for Win311.

Configuration:
AMD 486DX4-100Mhz
Shuttle HOT-419 DZ/R2 (OPTi 895) 486 VLB Motherboard
12MB RAM
Cirrus Logic 5428 VLB 1MB
Sony CDU55E CD-ROM 2.4X
Quantum Maverick 540MB HDD
3,5" floppy
Soundblaster Vibra
Fax-modem
Some VLB I/O controller

So I had to transfer some files over. It has CD-ROM unit, but it wouldn't read CD-RW disks and I didn't want to use CD-Rs for this. I also have one P3 machine so I swapped the CD-Rom unit for DVD-RW NEC but this one wasn't recognized. Then I thought to just remove the old HDD and put it into P3 machine. It gets recognized but I cannot access it in DOS - booted with Win98 Boot disk, the same happens as 1st boot drive - just hangs waiting after post. Damn! What to do? I just happened to have one old HDD from Amiga - 260MB Seagate (ST3290A) that I formatted in P3, made bootable and copied the files over. But when installed in the 486 it won't boot and even can't be accessed - even with boot floppy!? On my last attempt to transfer files over. I formatted the Seagate in the 486 and installed back to P3. It worked. It was recognized and fully accessible under DOS and WinXP. So I transferred the files over and hoped that 486 would still recognize it. Yes, it finally worked 😊

I just don't understand why wouldn't HDDs be accessible - the old one from 486 in P3 and vice-verse even older from P3 to 486? Everything was formatted in DOS and worked only in one machine but not the other!? I know that I used Win98 Boot floppy so it created FAT32 partition on a Seagate, but on 486 even with this boot floppy the partition wasn't recognized (fdisk would show that some partition is there). It would seem that Quantum from 486 wasn't formatted correctly (maybe some LBA or CHD misconfiguration).

When I get the time I will reformat it.

BTW:
This machine was last used in 2004 - the MS Word documents are of that date 🤣

😒