First post, by DoctorDalek
Hey all,
I made my family keep hold of my first PC for obvious reasons and I'm putting the time in to get it running again. Specs:
- Gateway 4DX2-66V (Intel DX2-66 obv.) full tower
- 40MB RAM
- 1x5.25" Floppy
- 1x3.5" Floppy
- 1x Tape backup drive
- ATI Graphics Ultra Pro - Mach 32
- 3com 3C509BC ethernet card
- Promise EIDE Pro expansion card
- 1.5GB WD HDD (dead)
- 341MB WD HDD (dead)
Unfortunately both hard drives are dead to either clicking or not spinning up. Since the machine hasn't been turned on for 20+ years I am not surprised. The battery also died so all the CMOS settings got reset and I'm having to build from practically the ground up. I am able to boot from 3.5" floppy into DOS. I bought an 8GB CF card and CF/IDE adapter hoping to get DOS/Windows installed to that, however I believe the BIOS only supports 4GB drives. Is there some sort of alternate BIOS ROM out there that would support 8GB drives? Or would the Promise card (as I understand they're generally terrible) fit the bill?
I'm as old as this machine and only got into building/configuring around the P3 era so the quirks are unknown to me. Thanks in advance!