VOGONS


First post, by kristosh

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A few weeks ago i got my handy on an old Laptop, a generic IPC FlatNote 266 MMX. The Laptop is in overall good condition, but the BIOS gives me a real headache. It is a SystemSoft BIOS for Intel 430TX Version 1.01 which has many little ways to configure it. Obviously there is a limit for Harddisks, which is around 4 GB.

So far so good. The ugly thing is, on every startup there is the message:

"Partition doesn't exist! Save to Disk feature is disabled. Hit any key to exit"

I can boot up from the original HDD, but can not write anything on disk. This message appears with any other HDD, even on SD Cards (used with an IDE to SD adapter). In the BIOS there is no way to change this, nor any way to configure the HDD. Also using fdisk on a new HDD/SD card results in a write protection error while trying to write on the disk. Is there a way to disable this in the BIOS?

I am not able to find any useful information about this BIOS or company. Has anybody experience with this BIOS or knwos a workaround? It would be a shame if there is no way to solve this problem, because the Laptop is otherwise in really good condition.

See some pictures attached. Thx a lot in advance!

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>>tinkerer & chaot extraordinaire<<

Reply 1 of 16, by BitWrangler

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Show us the security menu, might be some stuff in there you need to disable to have permission to use your own computer.

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 2 of 16, by kristosh

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BitWrangler wrote on 2021-08-25, 19:31:

Show us the security menu, might be some stuff in there you need to disable to have permission to use your own computer.

Unfortunately, there is not much to see in this security menu. System password is not set.

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>>tinkerer & chaot extraordinaire<<

Reply 3 of 16, by MAZter

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You just need to run Phdisk (or similar, cause Phdisk is for Phoenix bios) utility to write that hibernation partition. No other way to skip this message. Micron & TwinHead laptops use similar utility. Some laptops allow to use only file instead of partition + file.

The size of the partition/file must be no less than the amount of RAM, so left some free unallocated space on the HDD after you make active partition for disk C.

Doom is what you want (c) MAZter

Reply 4 of 16, by BitWrangler

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Turn off bootsector protect while you're trying to configure the system. Though if you think you HAVE configured drive on another system, then run a virus check on it, in case that is what is trying to write the drive when you boot it.

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 5 of 16, by Byrd

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Experiment with a small partition at the start or end of the hard disk (eg. unformatted 200MB at front, rest FAT/FAT32, unformatted 200MB at end) - it's looking for something ...

Reply 6 of 16, by MAZter

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The laptop hdd is probably protected by some third-party program, the message is not related to a writing problem, it says about hibernation partition does not exist, which is necessary to create at unallocated hdd space.

I recommend preparing new hdd/card on another laptop, the program helps to bypass the bios disk space limitation called "Western Digital EZ-Drive", you just boot from the floppy and it is prepared disk for you:

https://archive.org/details/ez-drive9.06w

Doom is what you want (c) MAZter

Reply 7 of 16, by hyoenmadan

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MAZter wrote on 2021-08-25, 20:36:

You just need to run Phdisk (or similar, cause Phdisk is for Phoenix bios) utility to write that hibernation partition...

Actually for Laptops with SystemSoft BIOSes, you need SystemSoft Suspend-To-Disk Utility (0VMAKFIL.EXE).
There are different versions, and some of them can't create the required partition for this system, only hibernation files (you will know the system doesn't work with an hibernation files exactly if you receive messages from BIOS like the ones OP posted here).

MAZter wrote on 2021-08-26, 01:38:

I recommend preparing new hdd/card on another laptop, the program helps to bypass the bios disk space limitation called "Western Digital EZ-Drive"...

He needs to do this after creating the hibernation partition with 0VMAKFIL.EXE, not before. EZ-Disk (and Ontrack) have provisions for scenarios with pre-existing hibernation partitions, and will not touch them while installing their respective INT13H overlays. Create the partition in the limits of the bios hdd size barrier.

Disable BootSector Protect menu option.

Reply 8 of 16, by kristosh

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hyoenmadan wrote on 2021-08-26, 03:17:
Actually for Laptops with SystemSoft BIOSes, you need SystemSoft Suspend-To-Disk Utility (0VMAKFIL.EXE). There are different ver […]
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MAZter wrote on 2021-08-25, 20:36:

You just need to run Phdisk (or similar, cause Phdisk is for Phoenix bios) utility to write that hibernation partition...

Actually for Laptops with SystemSoft BIOSes, you need SystemSoft Suspend-To-Disk Utility (0VMAKFIL.EXE).
There are different versions, and some of them can't create the required partition for this system, only hibernation files (you will know the system doesn't work with an hibernation files exactly if you receive messages from BIOS like the ones OP posted here).

MAZter wrote on 2021-08-26, 01:38:

I recommend preparing new hdd/card on another laptop, the program helps to bypass the bios disk space limitation called "Western Digital EZ-Drive"...

He needs to do this after creating the hibernation partition with 0VMAKFIL.EXE, not before. EZ-Disk (and Ontrack) have provisions for scenarios with pre-existing hibernation partitions, and will not touch them while installing their respective INT13H overlays. Create the partition in the limits of the bios hdd size barrier.

Disable BootSector Protect menu option.

Thank you very much for your help! Unfortunately I was not able to solve this problem yet.

First i tried the phdisk utility, but no luck. After reading about the 0vmakfil.exe, i began searching the web for the file and after some time i was lucky.
Everytime i tried to partition one of the drives i get the message "Something went wrong" "Error encountered". So no luck here. (Boot Sector Protection is off)

Maybe i have just the wrong version of the file (i found version 2.01.01), but after hours of searching i was not able to locate a newer version.
I am not giving up yet, but at the moment i am out of clues..

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>>tinkerer & chaot extraordinaire<<

Reply 9 of 16, by snufkin

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I've got a laptop with I think the same SCU (Hi-Grade Notino MI3000). There's an option in the Advanced settings to disable the save to disk partition missing warning. I don't have the partition on mine (I don't remember ever having it, so must have formatted the disk years ago), so I've disabled the warning and it works fine.

I think maybe the problem you have of not being able to write to the disk is something else. I've never had a problem with the disk, and I've had a quick look through the 'Guide to Operations' manual and can't see anything about write protecting the whole hard drive.

[edit: In case it helps, on my 'Main' -> 'IDE Settings' menu I have both 'Drive Enabled' and 'PIO Mode' selected for both Drive 0 and 1]

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Reply 10 of 16, by kristosh

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snufkin wrote on 2021-08-26, 15:54:

I've got a laptop with I think the same SCU (Hi-Grade Notino MI3000). There's an option in the Advanced settings to disable the save to disk partition missing warning. I don't have the partition on mine (I don't remember ever having it, so must have formatted the disk years ago), so I've disabled the warning and it works fine.

I think maybe the problem you have of not being able to write to the disk is something else. I've never had a problem with the disk, and I've had a quick look through the 'Guide to Operations' manual and can't see anything about write protecting the whole hard drive.

[edit: In case it helps, on my 'Main' -> 'IDE Settings' menu I have both 'Drive Enabled' and 'PIO Mode' selected for both Drive 0 and 1]

I can not believe it. That really solved the whole problem! Thank you very much! I admit i don't have a clue why, but anyhow, it works 😉
Now i have to figure out, why the CD-Drive is not showing up in the BIOS anymore, but the Laptop is working again!

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>>tinkerer & chaot extraordinaire<<

Reply 11 of 16, by mrfusion92

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Resume this post since I've the same problem that the OP mentioned in the last post.

I've a Mitac 5033 with same motherboard and BIOS of OP. I've swaped the CDROM drive because it was faulty. Now the new drive is detected by DOS (and works good) but it isn't detected by BIOS.

The hard drive size shows up in both "Hard Drive 0" and "Hard Drive 1" in main page of the BIOS. I tried to remove batteries, reset BIOS settings, disabled PIO mode, change jumper position in the hard drive and put again old cdrom drive but it changed nothing.

It is a minor issue since in DOS works ok but right now I can't boot from it if i would ever need to.

Reply 12 of 16, by snufkin

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Don't know if I can help with that. All I know is that on mine the main page of the BIOS shows "Hard Drive 0 = 2067 MB" and "Hard Drive 1 = CD-ROM". The IDE settings for both drives are set to enabled+PIO. Under boot sequence I have options for A: then C:, C:, A:, and CDROM then C:. I swapped the CD drive years ago to fit a DVD drive and it hasn't given any problems. When booting it just says auto-detecting IDE devices [done]. Just tried booting from a Win98 CD and it worked ok.

Reply 16 of 16, by snufkin

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Some BIOSes do weird things if there's a flat CMOS battery, so it might be worth putting a new one in. Thread about this laptop here: Re: Just got my first retro laptop! and from there to here: https://forums.techguy.org/threads/solved-ref … 88/post-1517284 suggests a flat CMOS battery can cause problems. I must have changed mine at some point, but don't particularly remember how. So either it was uneventful, or it was so bad I've blocked in from my mind.