I don't have any small 80MB-504MB hard drives but I do have a 10GB Maxtor is there a way to select the cylinders, heads and sectors to be around the 500MB mark for my 286 to work, my Bios has up to 46 hard drive types and a user setting (47). I don't have an XTide but would DDO Dynamic drive overlay work on a 286 12MHz?
The 10.1 GB Maxtor settings are:
Cylinders: 16383
Heads: 16
Sectors: 63
Those used to have a jumper to limit to 8.2gb.
With a bios upgrade or the XT ide project you should be able to handle the drive.
Dos 6.2 is best for a drive that big
If you want you could try using a 540mb setting and just using the drive, understand that the drive will then only work in that 286 and that unpredictable things could happen
GabrielKnight123 wrote on 2022-07-12, 13:07:would DDO Dynamic drive overlay work on a 286 12MHz?
Of course it will. Just don't go for the latest versions, some require 386+
If I were you I'd find a small (512MB or less) CF or SD card instead of using a multi-gigabyte HDD (you'll need an adapter anyway).
My smallest working SD, CF, and HDD are 16MB, 48MB, and 540MB, respectively.
Ontrack DM 9.57 works just great on 286/8 with 4x2GB on an 8GB CF Card, you can also make use of more with additional 2GB Partitions, but that comes with a cost.
Retro-Gamer 😀 ...on different machines
I have used Seagate Disc Manager at that time with my Compaq Deskpro 4/66i to boot with a Seagate 20GB Barracuda drive with a single partition. A blue ribbon was appearing on top when passing DOS screen. But, as you know, because of the bus limitation, you can only use up to 2 MB/s speed! Maxtor later bought by Seagate, so the Seagate program works with Maxtor drives as well.
