CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2025-05-22, 15:18:

Socket3 wrote on 2025-05-22, 07:39:

user33331 wrote on 2025-05-16, 04:41:

Why people believe this myth about digital SSDs being better than physical real HDD disc drives ? - The fact is if SSDs are not […]
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Why people believe this myth about digital SSDs being better than physical real HDD disc drives ?
- The fact is if SSDs are not powered for decades (10 years+) it erases itself when unpowered.
When no power is left in SSD to retain it's bits and bytes then it empties itself.
Then all your hard earned data is gone.

Only trustworthy are HDD disc drives.
- I myself even make sure that my modern PCs have large HDD disc drives.
- I have 30-40 years old disc HDDs still working in storage.
- I love my data and want to preserve it. Only HDDs offer this longtime reliability.

I agree 100% with all of the above. Add to that - vintage computers and more importantly the software they run are not designed to work with solid state media, and might actually provide a poor experience compared to using a spinning disk. I've personally had issues with anything older then 775/939 PCs and SSDs. That includes socket A and 478 stuff (but only when win9x and DOS is involved).

My guess is people run away from HDDs in vintage computers because of how physically fragile they can be. Getting one shipped from across the world might turn an otherwise working vintage HDD into a paperweight.

Statments on these posts are outrageously wrong or at the least misleading and no one who cares about their data should follow what is written there.

First, thinking that data is somehow more secure in HDD is blatantly wrong. MTBF of SSD is far superior compared to HDDs. As they represent very different kinds of technology, the factors affecting SSD reliability are very different from HDDs. For example, the technology used in SSD is a factor in itself and if you have a system with lots of writes, MLC or TLC are generally considered better solutions, although denser (and faster) technologies can be used at the same level as long as you don’t fill the SSDs and leave some capacity on the drives.

The plethora of working HDDs in my collection - some dating all the way back to 1990 - proves that magnetic hard disk drives are a proven and reliable technology. I will admit to being a little biased by my personal experience, as throughout the years I've seen far more solid state media (SSDs, flash drives, DOMs) fail then hard disk drives - by a factor of 3 to 1 - and considering I've been working with large volumes of computers for over 25 years, that's saying something.

If you need speed, solid state media is undoubtably the king. If you need reliability, well that's debatable. Right now my vote is for proven technology, but solid state media has potential - especially professional grade hardware.

-
BUT
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If you want hassle free reliable compatibility with retro PCs, particularly pentium and 486 486 era hardware - then a period correct hard disk drive is the way to go. Solid state drives rarely come in PATA, and when they do, the command a premium over their SATA counterparts. SATA SSDs are also very easy to come by, while PATA drives are niche, and can only be found on sketchy sites like aliexpress and sometimes on independent web stores that sell retro computer gear - in limited number, where they again, command a (sometimes hefty) premium. I'm talking about native PATA devices, because at least half of the headaches I've had with running solid state media on vintage PCs relate to the controller interface. I've had issues with most SATA to PATA adapters, some work better then others, some don't work at all, while some seem to only work on certain types of motherboards or with certain solid state media. CF to IDE adapters are in the same boat. I've spent hours trying to reliably get various size and manufacturer CF cards running reliably on a Fujitsu S400 and several other devices with native bootable CF card slots, and it's always a crapshoot. Some cards work ok on some devices, but not others, and there's little to no way of figuring out what works on what without wasting hours. Then there are DOMs - Disk On Modules - basically industrial quality flash drives with an IDE interface - these are the most compatible of the solid state media I've tried so far, but they're also some of the most expensive, and in some cases pretty slow (since they're designed to boot off of once every few months when industrial machines are rebooted for maintenance, and that's it - read / write operations are not a concern).

My experience with using SSDs and CF cards on old computers has been very very poor, and I'm only trying to spare other users the trouble I went trough.

In other news relevant for my computer: I have now discovered that fan size is not expressed as hole distance but as outer size, so now I have 2 brand new fans that don't fit the case. No problem, they can likely be used as more appropriate Voodoo SLI side coolers.

So now I have to buy 2 new fans with 72mm HOLE distance, so unless I'm mistaken those are 80mm fans.

meanwhile I'm finishing my old PC for sale. It's a 200MMX with 64MB Edo, S3 Virge 4MB and ISA SB16. Very nice "compatibility limit" spec, but it doesn't add anything to my current P3 733. So I can't find a reason to keep it. I've given it a fresh W98 install, working USB ports compatible with flash drives (in a Pentium 1, always nice!), so all ready to please someone else.

Socket3 wrote on 2025-05-22, 17:44:

The plethora of working HDDs in my collection - some dating all the way back to 1990 - proves that magnetic hard disk drives are […]
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The plethora of working HDDs in my collection - some dating all the way back to 1990 - proves that magnetic hard disk drives are a proven and reliable technology. I will admit to being a little biased by my personal experience, as throughout the years I've seen far more solid state media (SSDs, flash drives, DOMs) fail then hard disk drives - by a factor of 3 to 1 - and considering I've been working with large volumes of computers for over 25 years, that's saying something.

If you need speed, solid state media is undoubtably the king. If you need reliability, well that's debatable. Right now my vote is for proven technology, but solid state media has potential - especially professional grade hardware.

-
BUT
-

If you want hassle free reliable compatibility with retro PCs, particularly pentium and 486 486 era hardware - then a period correct hard disk drive is the way to go. Solid state drives rarely come in PATA, and when they do, the command a premium over their SATA counterparts. SATA SSDs are also very easy to come by, while PATA drives are niche, and can only be found on sketchy sites like aliexpress and sometimes on independent web stores that sell retro computer gear - in limited number, where they again, command a (sometimes hefty) premium. I'm talking about native PATA devices, because at least half of the headaches I've had with running solid state media on vintage PCs relate to the controller interface. I've had issues with most SATA to PATA adapters, some work better then others, some don't work at all, while some seem to only work on certain types of motherboards or with certain solid state media. CF to IDE adapters are in the same boat. I've spent hours trying to reliably get various size and manufacturer CF cards running reliably on a Fujitsu S400 and several other devices with native bootable CF card slots, and it's always a crapshoot. Some cards work ok on some devices, but not others, and there's little to no way of figuring out what works on what without wasting hours. Then there are DOMs - Disk On Modules - basically industrial quality flash drives with an IDE interface - these are the most compatible of the solid state media I've tried so far, but they're also some of the most expensive, and in some cases pretty slow (since they're designed to boot off of once every few months when industrial machines are rebooted for maintenance, and that's it - read / write operations are not a concern).

My experience with using SSDs and CF cards on old computers has been very very poor, and I'm only trying to spare other users the trouble I went trough.

Your collection of working old HDDs means absolutely nothing regarding the reliability of these storage devices. Your sample size is meaningless and with that logic you or I could as well make a collection of failed HDDs and claim that they are all unreliable trash. Only those drives that work tend to remain on people’s bins, all those that failed are tossed to trash. And of course there are old working HDDs in existence like there will be SSDs when they reach the same age. I have that one now 15 year old SSD which has been in use pretty much 24/7 for the last 10 years or so and before that it saw pretty much daily use in my desktop, but I still don’t claim that SSDs last at least 15 years. There is nothing debatable about the reliability because what I said about them are facts: both drives generally have similar life expectancy in continuous use, that is few years. However, SSD MTFB is several times better compared to HDDs, that is they are less likely to fail before their expected end of life and when their memory modules are actually worn out. They beat HDDs simply due to the lack of complex and delicate electro-mechanical parts. I haven’t used SSDs on my file servers due to cost issues, but NAS rated HDDs I’ve used both from WD and Seagate fail almost like a clockwork after 4-5 years so the industry standard applies almost perfectly.

This thread wasn’t about 486s or Pentiums and you yourself used much later systems as an example. Nowhere I suggested using SSD with such systems and it is no wonder if people get problems with somethin like pre-ATA IDE controllers and large, possibly SATA SSDs or HDDs. You use either those period correct drives, like I do mostly, or CF cards which have true IDE mode and have firmware that is suited for operation as HDD such as it is optimized for random reads for example. I’ve never ran into problems with correct CF cards on these systems, either newer industrial cards I have or older and generally smaller CF cards. It is not much about card manufacturer, but correct type of card because majority of CF/IDE adapters are just a direct connector to IDE interface. I mainly use CF for testing and in some cases as actual HDD replacements like in one of my IBM PS/2 model 35SX and in my two IDE equipped Amigas. I’ve never bothered to buy DOMs because of the higher cost compared to CF cards. I’ve never bought IDE SSDs either for the same reason, I always use Startech’s adapters on those vintage systems with SSDs. I have purchased couple cheaper chinese adapters based on how the design looks and they have worked fine, but went back to Startechs because you don’t really know if those chinese manufacturers suddenly start cutting costs and alter the components or design. Again, I use this kind of setup on my three systems and I don’t know how many times I have used one on a bench with different mobos from 440BX to different Socket A boards with zero problems.

You are of course completely free to use any kind of storage you want for whatever reason you like, but like the fellow you quoted and agreed simply spread wrong information about securing your valuable data and reliability of these storage devices. The main thing is that ”use HDD if you value your data” is just bollocks. If you value your data, then you have redundant storage and you make backups. It doesn’t matter if you have SSD or HDD or whatever, the important thing is that you need to remove the single failure point from the storage setup. And storing some valuable data on these vintage boxes at least without having it stored on some much more reliable system shouldn’t even be worth a discussion.

Not that I'm planning on replacing the hard drive...

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-05-20, 04:48:

I go into dos from the shutdown menu.

OK,
So in Win98 startup files work this.
Windows will load Autoexec.bat/config.sys during startup, Not ideal as can interfere with drivers loaded by windows itself.
You also have c:\windows\dosstart.bat This is the same as autoexec.bat but only loads when selecting Restart in Dos mode.

So ideally you would want c:\autoexec.bat blank and all your dos mode drivers in c:\windows\dosstart.bat

Personally I still don't like this setup as still means you have dos mode stuff in c:\config.sys
I prefer making a desktop shortcut to command.com on my desktop, and inside that file entering the lines for autoexec.bat/config.sys
That way it keeps dos and windows startup files completely separate.

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2025-05-22, 15:18:

And if they fail? Same as with HDDs, I couldn’t care less, because I have all my important data backed up and especially don’t rely these old systems as reliable storage no matter what storage they have.

Actually i do care. Not about data of course (though i do want my saves), but about reliability. I want the system to work. Each time. It is not hard to image the drive and restore it in case of failure, but doing it instead of playing a game for half an hour is extremely annoying. Decades old HDDs are not good at this, SSDs are. In low workload scenarios, but not laying around unused, they basically last forever. That's the main reason i get rid of old HDDs in all my systems and give this advice to people. Secondary reasons are noise and performance.

Archer57 wrote on 2025-05-23, 05:49:

CharlieFoxtrot wrote on 2025-05-22, 15:18:

And if they fail? Same as with HDDs, I couldn’t care less, because I have all my important data backed up and especially don’t rely these old systems as reliable storage no matter what storage they have.

Actually i do care. Not about data of course (though i do want my saves), but about reliability. I want the system to work. Each time. It is not hard to image the drive and restore it in case of failure, but doing it instead of playing a game for half an hour is extremely annoying. Decades old HDDs are not good at this, SSDs are. In low workload scenarios, but not laying around unused, they basically last forever. That's the main reason i get rid of old HDDs in all my systems and give this advice to people. Secondary reasons are noise and performance.

You are absolutely correct. Keep backups of what you deem important and drive failures don’t worry you in the first place (this is what I meant that I don’t care if my drive fails). You should keep backups whether your storage is based on spinning disks or solid state memory chips. If you have data backed up and if drive fails, just get a new one and import the data from backup. That is the only way. Claiming that using HDD instead of SSD is somehow the way to make your data more secure is simply an incorrect statement and this kind of thinking is dangerous. To your data at least.

And I agree fully that it is also a wrong assumption that using some vintage HDD over new SSD is somehow more secure. It is outright nonsense. Using some vintage drive where you perhaps even don’t know how many hours it has been used or how it has been stored is like rolling dice every time you power on the system compared to new unused drive.

It is another thing if the SSD is not feasible solution for some reason, but then same applies most likely to most newer SATA HDDs too. But reliability is the main factor I use SSDs in my retro boxes where it is feasible and that is mostly late 90s and early 2000s system. Added benefit is that you can still get them in sizes that are very suitable for many older systems.

I’m not personally bothered about the HDD noise in these systems, it is more or less part of the package. Or performance either. Everyone can use whatever they like and suits your need. You also should consider these old systems as the last place to store important data, because they can fail in many ways and any time so it shouldn’t matter that much if the derive fails in these systems. What little got me upset were the claims about superior data security of HDDs. I wrote my posts because I don’t want anybody thinking that using HDDs provides more safety in terms of storage reliability. It is factually not true.

I've received and installed the Audigy 2 (Platinum, I presume, as it comes with the bay unit). I suddenly realized that I also have an Audigy 2 (without the bay part) in my XP computer, so I already had the official driver CD.

Installation went smooth, just a bit of trickery for the SB16 emulation. I've got the yellow exclamation mark in the hardware overview, but I was told to leave it as otherwise it might not work. And it does work; Doom sounds amazing! And the PC also looks amazing with the beige bay unit.

I forgot the firewire cable on the bay unit, so I'll have some more unscrewing to do...

Next up: experimenting with SF2's, maybe. And doing some batch file trickery to make NFS:SE and possibly Worms run without having to manually stop GPU hardware acceleration before running them.

I've loaded a big sf2 via soundfont bank manager. Doom music sound impressive now.

Will this sf2 be loaded automatically when I boot the pc? Or is it something I'll have to do manually each time?

I've simply put soundfont bank manager in my startup folder. Now it boots with Windows and loads the sf2 automatically. I just have to close the window when done, if I want to.

NFS:SE with batch file also launches fine now.

Now ... what to do with that last bay. In beige.

Nicolas 2000 wrote on 2025-05-25, 19:10:

Now ... what to do with that last bay. In beige.

Media card reader?

I've been looking into those, but my motherboard does not have a 9 pin USB connector. It does have an 8 pin in a "box". If the relevant pinout is the same, I might get it to work by cutting the 9 pin cable connector.

As far as I can find, 8 pin is compatible with 9 pin if you make them mechanically compatible (read: cut off the 5th column on the cable connector or modify the motherboard connector). And if you can figure out which side is pin 1.

Now my motherboard will very likely be USB 1.X. Would such a Media Card Reader work with 1.x or does it *need* 2.0? Transmission speed doesn't bother me. I'm counting on the same driver that makes USB 2.0 flash drives work to make this thing work, so I've ordered one and we'll see in a few weeks time whether it works or not.

Looks like I'll have some rewiring to do on the cable connector! Which I assume will come as a 9 pin. In a 9 pin, the two rows are identical, followed by the not-connected ninth pin.

On this 8 pin connector however, the two rows are mirrored. Or so they say. I might carefully take a DMM to it first to verify. The safest option would be to leave the PC off, and simply check continuity between 4 and 8 for example.

You can always use male-female dupont cables to connect stuff as needed without modifying actual connectors, as long as you know both pinouts. I've made modern usb3/type-c front panels connection work with old motherboards this way...

And yeah, it is better to check at least ground/+5v as mixing those up, like if they are mirrored the way it is shown on the picture, can cause bad things to happen...

I would take the effort to build an adapter cable if I were to connect a peripheral of value, but as it's a brand new no-name card reader, just moving some pins around in the connector (no soldering required) and holding the pin 9 end to the sand stone will do.

A hypothetical question for the moment, but knowing myself...:

The motherboard manual only gives processor settings upto 866MHz (Coppermine). Possibly because nothing faster existed at the time of printing. However, the motherboard does support 133FSB and a freq ratio of 7.5. So would it work with a 1000mhz Coppermine? Both the installed 733 and the hypothetical 1000 should run at 1.7V, no difference there.

I might not ever do this to keep the build a bit balanced and the Voodoo's happy, but I like to know regardless.

Good news:
-CD drives now work in DOS
-Power F1 runs from W98

Bad news:
-in w98, Slicks n Slide crashes with "out of memory(buffer[10])" or something along those lines when loading a track. Yesterday it worked fine... It works in DOS but:
-I don't have sound yet in DOS. Might have to completely reinstall the audigy using the vogons guide.
-Audigy2 gameport doesn't detect gamepads or joysticks. Perhaps a conflict as the motherboard also has its own gameport?

You can usually disable gameport on the motherboard in BIOS. It may also make sense to disable other stuff there like serial/parallel to save resources, especially if you suspect conflicts...