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First post, by darry

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I recently got my hands on a Toshiba 4010CDT notebook with its original 4.3GB HDD from 1998 . That thing is small, slow, noisy and possibly not that reliable anymore .

I would obviously like to swap it out for a bigger, faster and quieter drive . The 4010CDT's BIOS obviously doesn't have LBA48 support, but I was hoping I might get away with an adapted 128GB SDXC card . Preliminary testing indicates that booting Windows 98 SE from such a card appears to work .

My question is essentially :

Is there a simple to use utility that can test/determine if writing to given capacity HDD (block device) using BIOS calls can work reliably for LBA28 or LBA22 (maybe/presumably) without causing data corruption ?

I know that such utilities do exist for LBA48 testing (Re: Adding XT-IDE option ROM to Asus P3B-F BIOS . ), but are there utilities to test/qualify pre-LBA48 functionality ?

EDIT: Machine is a 4010CDT, not a 4000CDT

Last edited by darry on 2022-02-09, 07:18. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 6, by Chkcpu

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Hi darry,

I wrote such a utility way back in 2000, and it is still available on my "The BIOS IDE Harddisk Limitations page at:
http://www.steunebrink.info/bioslim.htm

This DOS tool is called EXTBIOS and comes with a TXT-file that explains its use.
Note that EXTBIOS supports command-line switches and with the /V switch (verbose mode) you get extra details when the Int 13h extensions are detected.

This is what EXTBIOS /V shows on a socket 7 system with a 1999 BIOS and a 13GB HDD.

Extbios log 13GB HDD.png
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Extbios log 13GB HDD.png
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In this example the BIOS also supports the Enhancement by Phoenix Technologies Ltd. of the IBM/Microsoft Int 13h extensions.

Hope this helps, Jan

Edit: updated the link to my website.

Last edited by Chkcpu on 2023-10-28, 21:31. Edited 1 time in total.

CPU Identification utility
The Unofficial K6-2+ / K6-III+ page

Reply 2 of 6, by darry

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Chkcpu wrote on 2022-02-08, 12:40:
Hi darry, […]
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Hi darry,

I wrote such a utility way back in 2000, and it is still available on my "The BIOS IDE Harddisk Limitations page at:
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/bioslim.htm

This DOS tool is called EXTBIOS and comes with a TXT-file that explains its use.
Note that EXTBIOS supports command-line switches and with the /V switch (verbose mode) you get extra details when the Int 13h extensions are detected.

This is what EXTBIOS /V shows on a socket 7 system with a 1999 BIOS and a 13GB HDD.

Extbios log 13GB HDD.png

In this example the BIOS also supports the Enhancement by Phoenix Technologies Ltd. of the IBM/Microsoft Int 13h extensions.

Hope this helps, Jan

Thank you!

I will try it .

Reply 3 of 6, by darry

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Based on my understanding of the below results, the machine's BIOS should handle the drive just fine . Please correct me if wrong .
For reference, The 4010CDT is running BIOS version 8.20 (latest official version available) .

 Detection utility for Int 13h extensions  v1.3   (c) 1997-2000 Jan Steunebrink
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Harddisk 1: Int 13h extensions version 2.1 detected.
Subset supported: Extended disk access support (for > 8GB) : Yes
Drive locking and ejecting support : No
Enhanced Disk Drive (EDD) support : No
Device features : DMA boundary errors handled transparently: No
Device supports write with verify : No
Media is removable : No
Addressable geometry (CHS) is not available (drive is probably > 7560 MB)
A total of 244023296 Sectors of 512 Bytes (119152 MB) are addressable in LBA.
Enhanced Disk Drive (EDD) configuration parameters: (DPTE revision 7.0)
**** DPTE checksum is zero - Data below may be invalid! ****
ATA I/O base and Control ports are 0F9Eh and 00CAh
BIOS uses IRQ 112 for this disk
Master/Slave bit for this disk is set to : Master
BIOS to Device interface uses LBA : Yes
Configuration of Hardware specific Options:
- Multi-word DMA transfers : Mode 1 via DMA Channel 6
- Fast PIO accessing : No
- PIO multi-sector transfers: No
- 32-bit transfer mode : No
- Disk is ATAPI device : No

Harddisk 2: Int 13h extensions not supported or drive not present.

Harddisk 3: Int 13h extensions not supported or drive not present.

Harddisk 4: Int 13h extensions not supported or drive not present.

Reply 4 of 6, by Chkcpu

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darry wrote on 2022-02-09, 06:50:
Based on my understanding of the below results, the machine's BIOS should handle the drive just fine . Please correct me if wron […]
Show full quote

Based on my understanding of the below results, the machine's BIOS should handle the drive just fine . Please correct me if wrong .
For reference, The 4010CDT is running BIOS version 8.20 (latest official version available) .

 Detection utility for Int 13h extensions  v1.3   (c) 1997-2000 Jan Steunebrink
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
Harddisk 1: Int 13h extensions version 2.1 detected.
Subset supported: Extended disk access support (for > 8GB) : Yes
Drive locking and ejecting support : No
Enhanced Disk Drive (EDD) support : No
Device features : DMA boundary errors handled transparently: No
Device supports write with verify : No
Media is removable : No
Addressable geometry (CHS) is not available (drive is probably > 7560 MB)
A total of 244023296 Sectors of 512 Bytes (119152 MB) are addressable in LBA.
Enhanced Disk Drive (EDD) configuration parameters: (DPTE revision 7.0)
**** DPTE checksum is zero - Data below may be invalid! ****
ATA I/O base and Control ports are 0F9Eh and 00CAh
BIOS uses IRQ 112 for this disk
Master/Slave bit for this disk is set to : Master
BIOS to Device interface uses LBA : Yes
Configuration of Hardware specific Options:
- Multi-word DMA transfers : Mode 1 via DMA Channel 6
- Fast PIO accessing : No
- PIO multi-sector transfers: No
- 32-bit transfer mode : No
- Disk is ATAPI device : No

Harddisk 2: Int 13h extensions not supported or drive not present.

Harddisk 3: Int 13h extensions not supported or drive not present.

Harddisk 4: Int 13h extensions not supported or drive not present.

Yes, this BIOS supports the 'Extended disk access' subset of the Int 13h extensions to break the 8GiB barrier, and should support drives up to the 128GiB limit of the LBA 28-bit interface.
Note that the 'Enhanced Disk Drive' subset is not supported and the EDD configuration parameters are invalid. This is of no consequence to the fixed (boot) drive, but without EDD support Win98 may assign a different drive letter than the underlying DOS for removable media.

Jan

CPU Identification utility
The Unofficial K6-2+ / K6-III+ page

Reply 5 of 6, by douglar

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Chkcpu wrote on 2022-02-08, 12:40:

I wrote such a utility way back in 2000, and it is still available on my "The BIOS IDE Harddisk Limitations page at:
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/bioslim.htm

@Chkcpu I was able to get the file from wayback machine, but it looks like your website might be down.

Reply 6 of 6, by Chkcpu

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Hi Douglar,

Thanks for your interest in my Extbios tool. 😀
Nice that you found it in the internet archive.

Note that my website is still live, however I had to move it to another domain.
The patched K6plus BIOS repository gets a new home - and several new patched BIOSes!

Cheers, Jan

CPU Identification utility
The Unofficial K6-2+ / K6-III+ page