There are some cheap IDE HDDs listed on VCF BTW.

Firtasik wrote:

Non-natively doesn't automatically mean bad. […]
Show full quote

philscomputerlab wrote:

It took someone to write a patch, so this is something way outside of what Windows natively supports.

Non-natively doesn't automatically mean bad.

And even with the patch there are lots of steps involved.

I don't think so.

And when you dig deeper there aren't many that actually use larger drives with the drive actually being filled and long-term reliability accounts.

The rule is simple: if you want long-term reliability then don't use Win9x.

Well please outline the steps then from your experience. Are you actually running a 128 MB+ system?

The last argument is as helpful as telling an alcoholic to stop drinking. Might as well say if you want long-term reliability don't use a computer because people run Windows 98 for a reason, otherwise they would be running it on XP or later. I have zero issue with Windows 98 BECAUSE I stay with official and tested stuff.

I've build the lo-tech ISA CF board, hoping to solve this problem but I couldn't fix it yet 🙁

There seems to be a conflict with the disk controller, both using address at C800h.
Anyways the XT-BIOS could detect the CF card and allowed me to format it to 2GB FAT16.

Next I will try to boot the OS from the CF card, if I find out how to install DOS 7.10 using my W98 installation CD.

I'm also considering to switch the 486 motherboard.
Have 2 options right now:

Actual motherboard is:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3oib4uig6kmky7t/201 … .56.21.jpg?dl=0

Another 486 motherboard that i have:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pj42nysg1etyk2h/201 … .35.10.jpg?dl=0

philscomputerlab wrote:

Well please outline the steps then from your experience. Are you actually running a 128 MB+ system?

The last argument is as helpful as telling an alcoholic to stop drinking. Might as well say if you want long-term reliability don't use a computer because people run Windows 98 for a reason, otherwise they would be running it on XP or later. I have zero issue with Windows 98 BECAUSE I stay with official and tested stuff.

I don't recall any problems with applying (it's a simple file replacement operation) and using the patch (BHDD 3.1) with my 250GB HDD.

I just find expectations for Win9x longer-term reliability a bit naïve.

Unofficial and tested stuff is good enough for me. You prefer official methods. OK, that's fine.

Maybe you have Windows 98 Zero Issue Edition. 😉

Firtasik wrote:

it's a simple file replacement operation) and using the patch (BHDD 3.1) with my 250GB HDD.

That's it? Reading the link from yours there are quite a few more things to watch out for.

^ yep, it all boils down to replacing the ESDI_506.PDR file with the correct one depending your windows version.
I have slipstreamed it into my installation files, it gets installed by default along with things like ie6, directx, powertoys, utils , they all get expanded before the system boots into win98 for the first time 😉

dosfriend wrote:

I've build the lo-tech ISA CF board, hoping to solve this problem but I couldn't fix it yet :( […]
Show full quote

I've build the lo-tech ISA CF board, hoping to solve this problem but I couldn't fix it yet 🙁

There seems to be a conflict with the disk controller, both using address at C800h.
Anyways the XT-BIOS could detect the CF card and allowed me to format it to 2GB FAT16.

Next I will try to boot the OS from the CF card, if I find out how to install DOS 7.10 using my W98 installation CD.

I'm also considering to switch the 486 motherboard.
Have 2 options right now:

Actual motherboard is:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3oib4uig6kmky7t/201 … .56.21.jpg?dl=0

Another 486 motherboard that i have:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pj42nysg1etyk2h/201 … .35.10.jpg?dl=0

I would definitely use the second one. It has PCI and 72 pin SIMMs, so a much modern MB compared to the first one, most probably having a much modern BIOS, so might solve some of your problems already.

It has its own onboard EIDE controller, so I bet you will be good to go up to 8GB, if not 32GB, with its own BIOS. I might be wrong, but I never seen any EIDE controller without LBA option. Heck, it even has an on board SCSI controller. The one same era 486 board I have from FIC (PCI, 72 pin SIMMs) definitely can accept anything up to 8GB including CF cards.

On top of everything, it's an Asus board, so you might probably have a good chance of finding documentation on-line.

Artex has scanned the full manual for the ASUS board you linked:

Build 486's And They Will Come! Suggestions please!

There are also some interesting info in the same thread about that board 😀

Sorry for the late reply! 😀

I have been able to replace the motherboard with the ASUS one, thanks for linking the manual.
Also replaced the 486 DX2/66 with a DX4/100 (without WB cache) and it is running so fast now.

About the HDD, I am still struggling with the CF to IDE adaptor. With the ISA to CF card it is detected and I can copy files to and from the CF cards, but I can't boot DOS from them yet.

I think I will need a guide to be able to install DOS 7.1 on my CF card. Found the DOS 7.1 images here:
http://ms-dos7.hit.bg/#msfv

Also got a GOTEK Floppy emulator but never used it before. Could you please give me some advice?

Many thanks!

I wouldn't worry about trying to install dos, at least while trying to get up and running. Keep things simple and boot from a Dos 7 boot disk and type sys a: c: (if is the boot disk and c: is the CF card) That'll make the CF card bootable (hopefully) but not confuse things with drivers failing to load, etc.

I've never used the CF to IDE adaptor, but setting that as your boot controller of Master/Primary IDE controller will give you the best chance I would think.

Gotek drive is easy! Attach the cables and set up in BIOS just like a standard floppy and that's it. As far as the 486 is concerned it acts just as a floppy drive.
For a PC that doesn't have a drive installed you can use the software to switch between "disks" and format the USB stick for the drive. I find 1.23 works best on my XP pc
http://www.ipcas.com/support/usb-floppy-emula … n-download.html

Thanks for linking the gotek software. Finally managed to create 999 partitions on my USB drive and copy files to them!

Booted DOS 7.1, partitioned the CF card with 7.1 fdisk and formatted it using FAT32.

After that, installed DOS 7.1 using default options except for long file name support (I don't think I will need this) and everything went fine. The CF booted without any issue.

Finally after some months I am able to remove the HDD. Faster system and most important: 0 noise 😀

Really appreciate the help of you all!

Congratulations! Well worth all that messing around and a CF card should last decades in a dos PC. Don't forget to align it (something I still haven't got around to doing) Using CF-IDE Adapter

I really like the gotek drive, worst thing is remembering whats on each disk. I ended up purposely keeping the first few blank for quick file copies between PC's and a few boot disks which I put on the disk number (eg disk 6 is a Dos 6.22 boot disk, disk 98 is my Dos 7 bootdisk (Cause its from Win98)

Also if you open the drive you'll notice a 2nd LED, this shows Read/Write access which is more useful then the green power LED, so I bent the green one out the way and the red one to just behind the hole where the LED used to sit

But now you can actually enjoy playing on the 486...Till the next "improvement" anyway 😉

How about getting an seagate pata, resizing to 2 gig using seatools, and use that as an replacement?