VOGONS

Search

Common searches

32GB SD-to-IDE detected as 8GB in BIOS on QDI P5I430VX-250DM V3.0

Topic actions

First post, by midnightshuffle22

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

My QDI Socket 7 board I managed to score open box about a year ago and recapped with some nice Rubycon capacitors has been working flawlessly, and I had a rudimentary install of Windows 95 working for a bit to ensure everything was working properly. I don't have any reason to doubt the hardware is working as intended, as everything has worked as expected on that front. I had a few obvious driver compatibility issues, and I recently moved everything into an actual tower case, so I thought it would be a good time to install Windows properly. My real main thorn in the side is that the HDD auto detect (which does have LBA) in the BIOS will only detect my adapter as an 8025 MB drive. I read a few similar threads on this online from around that time (1998-1999), and it sounds like this might just be a limitation of the BIOS? I thought I would ask here, as a few other mentions of workarounds got me optimistic that I could get the full 32GB working. It's not unrealistic to see this being a BIOS limitation, as PC Magazine issues from around the time of this motherboard (1997) mention recommended HDD capacities in the 2-4 GB range. Still, is it possible to do something to get this working with the board I have? If not, I suppose at least 8 GB is a fair bit for Win95.

https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/qdi-p5 … -explorer-ii-sp

u/EuphoricPenguin22 - interested in many things

Reply 2 of 6, by douglar

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
kingcake wrote on 2024-03-18, 02:27:

Pre 99/98 machines usually do have an 8GB limit. Drive overlay like Ontrack 9.57 will fix this.

https://www.philscomputerlab.com/ontrack-disk-manager.html

Exactly. If you are using an HD is “normal” CHS mode, you have a 512MB limit, if you use it in “large” mode, you get the ECHS limit, which was 8GB, and if you can configure the drive to use LBA in the BIOS, you should be able to get larger than that.

Reply 3 of 6, by midnightshuffle22

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Ontrack seems to have detected the full capacity, so I'll report back if I can get the install working. I should say, though, that the contemporary limits of LBA mode seems to be the cause of the 8GB limit. I think later iterations of LBA probably support larger drives. My understanding is that normal caps at 512 MB, large at 1024 MB, and this iteration of LBA at 8025 MB.

u/EuphoricPenguin22 - interested in many things

Reply 4 of 6, by zyga64

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie

You can also use bios patcher from rom.by
https://youtu.be/VwZT40sRMzM and https://youtu.be/0KBYj1vx3zQ
BTW. Both yt channels are excellent. Kudos for Scorp and B&B !

1) VLSI SCAMP /286@20 /4M /CL-GD5422 /CMI8330
2) i420EX /486DX33 /16M /TGUI9440 /GUS+ALS100+MT32PI
3) i430FX /K6-2@400 /64M /Rage Pro PCI /ES1370+YMF718
4) i440BX /P!!!750 /256M /MX440 /SBLive!
5) iB75 /3470s /4G /HD7750 /HDA

Reply 5 of 6, by douglar

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Oldbie
Rank
Oldbie
midnightshuffle22 wrote on 2024-03-18, 03:07:

Ontrack seems to have detected the full capacity, so I'll report back if I can get the install working. I should say, though, that the contemporary limits of LBA mode seems to be the cause of the 8GB limit. I think later iterations of LBA probably support larger drives. My understanding is that normal caps at 512 MB, large at 1024 MB, and this iteration of LBA at 8025 MB.

Depends on the BIOS. There is a rats nest of different IDE addressing hitches that have shown up on different systems over the years, but 512MB (15 head limit) , 8GB (1024C/255H/63S limit) and 128GB (LBA28 limit) are the most common BIOS limits. https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Storage# … age_Limitations

Reply 6 of 6, by midnightshuffle22

Posted on 
User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie
zyga64 wrote on 2024-03-18, 06:39:

You can also use bios patcher from rom.by
https://youtu.be/VwZT40sRMzM and https://youtu.be/0KBYj1vx3zQ
BTW. Both yt channels are excellent. Kudos for Scorp and B&B !

Looks interesting, but I think DDO is probably the way to go for this build. I'd have to disassemble everything, search for and wait for a chip flasher that might not work with my BIOS chip package type, desolder the chip, patch it, troubleshoot it, and hope everything works smoothly. I'm sure this is a solid solution for people with DIP-style BIOS chips, but my QDI board uses something like an LCC package chip, which would be hard to desolder and reprogram. DDO seems like it will work great, but I just nuked my Windows 95 install with some bad IDE drivers, which means I'll probably have to install from scratch again.

u/EuphoricPenguin22 - interested in many things

Go to top of page Go to top of page
Back to General Old Hardware
Close window
Close window