First post, by hiroshima
Hi guys,
This is Mauro from Italy. I joined this great Community some time in 2014 but this is my first thread/post ever.
I'm a big PC vintage fanatic!
Right now I put together a system as follow (picture in my signature):
Asus VLI-486SV2GX4 with 16Mb RAM and 256K L2 cache
AMD AM486DX4-120 in WT
Diamond Stealth64 VRAM S3-964 VLB 4Mb
Tekram DC-880 BIOS v1.0 and Firmware v1.10 both dated 1993 w/ 16Mb cache RAM
Seagate Barracuda 4LP ST32171W 2.1Gb
Plextor PX-40TSi
Iomega ZIP 100 SCSI
Roland MPU-401AT w/ Roland MT-32 old / Roland CM-32L / Roland SC55mkII / Korg NX5r (Yamaha DB51XG inside)
Creative Sound Blaster AWE32 CT2760 rev. 3 w/ 32Mb RAM
Gravis Ultrasound MAX rev. 1.8 w/ 1Mb
Well, that's all I think.
Here is the problem, SCSI related:
Hard drive is controlled by Tekram BIOS Int 13h and, even if it's capacity is fully recognized by the controller (CHS parameters 2006c 64h 32c * 512 bytes), with FDISK from MS-DOS 6.22 I am able to create no more than 1 partition of 1024 Mb in size (0 - 1023 cylinders) with no more space to create extended one; my goal is to make 1 primary partition of 2 Gb in size.
Now, I am pretty sure that FDISK is able to create partitions of 2 Gb with FAT16 file system.
What's wrong in this?
I think the problem is in Tekram BIOS/FW although the controller can perform some kind of translations; I can choose a MAX DOS disk capacity between:
1G = 64 heads and 32 sectors, maximum 1GB
1.5G = 64 heads and 48 sectors, maximum 1.5GB
2G = 128 heads and 32 sectors, maximum 2GB
3G = 128 heads and 48 sectors, maximum 3GB
4.5G = 192 heads and 48 sectors, maximum 4.5GB
Even if I set a 2G limit disk capacity 1003c 128h 32s * 512 bytes, the result will be the same as FDISK will make 1 primary partition of 1024 Mb from 0c to 1023c.
I also managed to find a BIOS/FW upgrade package v1.17 for the controller but I don't have an EPROM programmer to try it.
Here is a link to the user manual of a Tekram DC-880B, different in hardware layout from mine, but with the same software features:
http://ftp.dyu.edu.tw/file/5396_dc880b.pdf
Mauro
P.S. Sorry for my poor english...