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HW limitation?

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First post, by ricom2ger

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I have Toshiba Satellite T2150CDT laptop.

486 DX4 75Mhz 16MB RAM 1MB CirrusLogic video 10" TFT 640x480 ESS688 sound 528MB HDD with Windows 95 […]
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486 DX4 75Mhz
16MB RAM
1MB CirrusLogic video
10" TFT 640x480
ESS688 sound
528MB HDD with Windows 95

I want to replace the HDD with 1.3GB drive. I can fdisk the HDD, format, install DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 on it. Everything works fine.

Now to the problem. I want to install Windows 95, I can run the setup, it is copying the files and restarts. But it`s not booting anymore, I get the blinking cursor or it says that its not bootable. Connecting the HDD to another PC it boots and continues the installation.

Reply 1 of 13, by oeuvre

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Have you tried to sys C:

HP Z420 Workstation Intel Xeon E5-1620, 32GB, RADEON HD7850 2GB, SSD + HD, XP/7
ws90Ts2.gif

Reply 2 of 13, by ricom2ger

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oeuvre wrote:

Have you tried to sys C:

Many times with different bootdisks. The HDD with the partition is bootable on other PC, but not on that. Even tried with the Graphical Boot Manager, it boots to GAG, but won`t boot the OS, same result. First thought that it won`t boot FAT32 partition, but that is not the case, have FAT16.

Reply 3 of 13, by derSammler

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Did you see the full 1.3 GB of the drive when you created the partition using FDISK? If not, your BIOS does not support hard disks that large, which would explain why it won't boot.

Reply 4 of 13, by ricom2ger

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derSammler wrote:

Did you see the full 1.3 GB of the drive when you created the partition using FDISK? If not, your BIOS does not support hard disks that large, which would explain why it won't boot.

It does, even with 30GB HDD got Windows 3.11 on 2GB partition running. Tried with a smaller partition (500MB) too, but no luck.

Reply 5 of 13, by derSammler

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Then try "FDISK /MBR".

Reply 6 of 13, by ricom2ger

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derSammler wrote:

Then try "FDISK /MBR".

Same blinking cursor. Tried with 3 Windows 95 bootdisks.

Or.

Disk I/O error
Replace the disk, and the press any key

The manual says:

The T2150 series supports 260 million bytes (250MB) (TEG only) and 520 million bytes (500 MB) drive.

In the BIOS I can´t manually enter HDD info, it detects the drive on the fly.

HDD Mode = Enhanced IDE (Normal)

Reply 7 of 13, by yawetaG

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You may have to use drive overlay software to get it to work. Probably the BIOS doesn't support hard disks with a capacity greater than 504 Mb, even though it autodetects the hard disk information fine.

Reply 8 of 13, by Jo22

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I second that. As much as I try to avoid DDO's, it is perhaps the most elegant solution here.
The original HDD had a capacity of ~500MB, so it was likely using CHS geometry natively.
Windows 95, however, supports LBA and doesn't fall for fake CHS settings.
So when it detects the huge HDD, It'll try to use all capacity using LBA,
which in turn doesn't match with the current partition data.

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 9 of 13, by ricom2ger

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yawetaG wrote:

You may have to use drive overlay software to get it to work. Probably the BIOS doesn't support hard disks with a capacity greater than 504 Mb, even though it autodetects the hard disk information fine.

Tried EZ-Drive, made one partition, formated it with FAT32, EZ-Drive made the HDD bootable with Windows 95 system files from disk, it was bootable to DOS, installed Windows 95, but after the first restart, it gave me the "Invalid system disk ..." error.

Reply 10 of 13, by derSammler

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Windows 95 may have killed EZ-Drive. You can create a rescue disk with EZ-Drive to restore the MBR, should a program overwrite that.

Reply 11 of 13, by Disruptor

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Have you activated the partition in FDISK?

Reply 12 of 13, by ricom2ger

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derSammler wrote:

Windows 95 may have killed EZ-Drive. You can create a rescue disk with EZ-Drive to restore the MBR, should a program overwrite that.

I don´t have a Floppy drive for that Toshiba, but the drive is bootable with other laptops (tried with Compas Aero and Contura, both 486) and it boots in VMWare with IDE-USB adapter. Tried different Windows 95 builds and the result was the same, after the first reboot it won´t boot anymore.

Disruptor wrote:

Have you activated the partition in FDISK?

Many times with different fdisk versions.

Ordered IDE-SD adapter from China and it arrived today. Got Windows 95 installed with 16GB SD card and it boots. 😊 The original 12.5mm HDD is damn noisy, hot and slow as hell.

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