leileilol wrote:

119GB iirc, but you're using a 486, so i'd advise just sticking to 7gbs as not many 486 motherboards exceed support for that much capacity. 7GB is a ton in 486 land. You'll know it once you try to think of 'what can fill this!?'

So how can you select what size you want it? The smallest IDE HD I could find new is 80GB. I know there are sometimes jumpers on the back that let you limit the capacity, but I don't think it limits it to anywhere near as low as 7GB. Do you do it by doing something with the Fdisk command?

No, you usually do it by having an actual 7GB (or whatever) hard drive. No, you can't get 'em new, but used ones are easy to find cheap or free.

You can usually use larger drives. The controller just won't be able to use all of it. People would use drive overlay software to get around this back in the day, but I would stay away from that because it's troublesome.

FDisk will just show you the max that the BIOS allows.

Some older hard drives have jumper settings that limit the size. Maxtor particularily

Alright! I have MS DOS 7.10 installed on a brand new Seagate 80GB HD (it says it has been formatted to 8,201,164 kilobytes though 😉 ). So I suppose what I need now are the drivers for the SB16 CT2230. Anybody have those? Also on the lookout for any good DOS utilities like menu programs and HD navigators etc.

When installing DOS it asked about installing something to help with long file names. I disabled long file names though in the end as I doubt I will every use any software that uses it. Was that a good idea?

* Edit - Think I might have the right drivers now. Do I need the plug and play manager for this sound card?

I think I need some advice on my config.sys and autoexec.bat too. I didn't install the plug and play manager for my SB16 CT2230. Not 100% sure if I am supposed to with this card or not. MS DOS 7.10 installed. Currently says that largest executable program size is 611k. It has been a long time time since I have messed with these files so everything is a bit rusty. Should I just run Memmaker? Anyway here are the files:

Autoexec.bat:

SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S
C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q
@ECHO OFF
PROMPT $P$G
SET DIRCMD=/4
MODE CON RATE=32 DELAY=1
LH DOSKEY
LH MSCDEX /D:IDE-CD
LH SMARTDRV
LH CTMOUSE
LH CTMOUSE > NUL
BREAK ON
ECHO Now you are in MS-DOS 7.10 prompt. Type 'HELP' for help.
ECHO.

Config.sys

DEVICE=C:\DOS71\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS71\EMM386.EXE RAM
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS71\SETVER.EXE 6.22
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS71\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:IDE-CD
COUNTRY=001,437,C:\DOS71\COUNTRY.SYS
SHELL=COMMAND.COM /P /E:640
DOS=HIGH,UMB,AUTO
FCBS=4,0
BUFFERS=20,0
LASTDRIVE=26
STACKS=9,256
SET PATH=C:\DOS71;..;
FILES=40

I looked up the card and it doesn't seem to have jumpers for audio IRQ or low/high DMA so I think it is partially PnP. That means you need the PnP Manager unless the BIOS does that stuff for you. Does the card work?
http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/sound-cards-multi … R-16-MCD-A.html

Your boot files are scary. I cleaned em up a bit. A lot of those settings aren't necessary unless a program specifically requests them, and some stuff was out of order or in the wrong file entirely. 😁

Autoexec.bat:
@ECHO OFF
SET PATH=C:\DOS71;..;
SET SOUND=C:\SB16
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:E
LH MSCDEX /D:IDE-CD
LH SMARTDRV
LH CTMOUSE
LH DOSKEY
C:\SB16\DIAGNOSE /S
C:\SB16\MIXERSET /P /Q

Config.sys
DEVICE=C:\DOS71\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS71\EMM386.EXE RAM
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICEHIGH=C:\DOS71\VIDE-CDD.SYS /D:IDE-CD

Thanks. I am running your version of the boot files now. I put SET PATH=C:\DOS71;..; back in though because without it in order to run a DOS command I had to change to the DOS directory first.

Ah ok. Yeah path should be in there sorry. But it needs to be in autoexec.

Path tells DOS to keep all files in the specified directories available for direct access without a manually entered path. It's a shortcut essentially.

Ok will do. So I don't need to install the plug and play config manager with this SB16?

Is the card working? I don't see jumpers for audio IRQ and DMA on the card so they must be software configured. That might indicate PnP... If the card is working though you're good to go.

Ok. I will install it. When I did before it wouldn't load on boot because it didn't like this version of DOS and thought I was running windows or something. I will tell you the error once I have put it back in again.

Not sure if the card was working though as I didn't have any program with sound on here yt.

You haven't told me if the card is working or not. Don't mess with that PnP stuff unless the card won't work otherwise. All the PnP software does is assign IRQ, Port and DMA values to the card if the motherboard BIOS doesn't do PnP ISA.

ok will test it first.

Just ran the diagnose program and heard sound on all tests. So it looks like I don't need the PnP stuff.

So I currently have 611K. Will this be enough?

I found the old Creative tech page for your card
http://web.archive.org/web/19970606131722/www … ard/ct2230.html

611K is excellent.

Thanks for your help. Bits of this are coming back to me as I do it. Just need to find a nice DOS menu program now.

Wow the Internet Archive is extremely fast today. If you want to explore the old Creative site, now is the time. 😀
http://web.archive.org/web/19970226185848/www … m/zonemenu.html

I was looking for info on my card and wasn't able to find it online. Thankfully your searching skills seem to be far superior 🤣

I don't seem to be able to get my mouse working. I see that in my autoexec.bat it loads CTMOUSE so shouldn't the mouse work? I have a serial to PS/2 converter plugged in to the serial port. Could this be a problem?