Putting 40 gig hard drive into a 1996 PC

[Bill D.]

Dureing the weekend, I installed a 40gb Seagate hard drive into
friend's old computer. The date of the BIOS was 1996.

As I was running Fdisk after installing the drive, the program told
me that the BIOS could be configured to recognise the "new large hard
drives bigger than 2gb" and did I want that option? I selected "yes".

Later on, after loading Windows 98, I noticed that as the PS was
booting up (before getting to Windows), the on-screen text reported
the hard drive as being only 8-something gb.

Stupidly, I forgot to note what size Windows reported the hard drive
as. I can't telephone her to ask her, but have to go back next weekend
to finish setting the PC up.

Should I take along any special software to get the PC to report the
size of the hard drive correctly?

Thank you

Adrian

If you can't find a solution at one of these, then I guess
you're SOL.

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/manuals/ata/100129581.pdf

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/utils.html

--
"ACK",
Bill D.
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
" Now just look..... they're burning the `Porta-Potties' "
........ OPUS

 

[Hackworth]

Dureing the weekend, I installed a 40gb Seagate hard drive into
friend's old computer. The date of the BIOS was 1996.

As I was running Fdisk after installing the drive, the program told
me that the BIOS could be configured to recognise the "new large hard
drives bigger than 2gb" and did I want that option? I selected "yes".

Later on, after loading Windows 98, I noticed that as the PS was
booting up (before getting to Windows), the on-screen text reported
the hard drive as being only 8-something gb.

If flashing the BIOS with the most recent version for the exact motherboard
make/model in that system doesn't work (or if you can't find a newer BIOS to
download), then your only viable option is to pick up a PCI controller card
like one of these:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816102002
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16815150002

That's pretty much guaranteed to solve your problem.

 

[Pelysma]

The motherboard's BIOS apparently has the 32GB limitation so it
numerically wraps around leaving 8GB. You need to check for a BIOS update.

"PC Hardware In A Nutshell" is a nice little textbook that describes many of
these drive size limitations in detail. There are hardware and software
limitations at 512 MB, 2 GB, 8 GB, 32GB, and 128 GB, each caused by design
choices made at one time or another. The 8 GB hardware limitation can be
worked around with a BIOS upgrade; consult the website of your BIOS
manufacturer (Award, Phoenix, etc.) Once it is applied the next limit you
will run into is at 128 GB per drive, and to get by that one you'll have to
replace practically everything.

The memory for this machine would have been 168 pin SDRAM, probably PC66.
Later versions are PC100 and PC133, and these will "clock down" to be
compatible with your machine. Newer 184 pin DIMMs such as PC266 and PC400,
will NOT fit. In 1996 many of these sticks were 16 MB, and your machine will
not use more than 64 MB efficiently, but you can buy PC133 today in 128,
256, and 512 MB sticks. I would consider putting 128 in the machine at a
cost of about $50 if it's worth that to you. The processor is probably a
Pentium, Pentium II, or AMD K6-2 in the range of 166-450 MHz and you can do
quite a lot with that, just probably not movies or recent games.

 

[spodosaurus]

"PC Hardware In A Nutshell" is a nice little textbook that describes many of
these drive size limitations in detail. There are hardware and software
limitations at 512 MB, 2 GB, 8 GB, 32GB, and 128 GB, each caused by design
choices made at one time or another. The 8 GB hardware limitation can be
worked around with a BIOS upgrade; consult the website of your BIOS
manufacturer (Award, Phoenix, etc.)

Consult the website of your motherboard manufacturer and get the EXACT
model or risk a dead board.

Once it is applied the next limit you
will run into is at 128 GB per drive, and to get by that one you'll have to
replace practically everything.

The memory for this machine would have been 168 pin SDRAM, probably PC66.

Machines with 72pin EDO were still being sold at this time.

Later versions are PC100 and PC133, and these will "clock down" to be
compatible with your machine. Newer 184 pin DIMMs such as PC266 and PC400,
will NOT fit. In 1996 many of these sticks were 16 MB, and your machine will
not use more than 64 MB efficiently, but you can buy PC133 today in 128,
256, and 512 MB sticks. I would consider putting 128 in the machine at a
cost of about $50 if it's worth that to you.

Considering it will probably only work with low density modules, I would
make sure what memmory it can take by downloading the motherboard's
owner's manual if you no longer have it in your possession.

The processor is probably a
Pentium, Pentium II, or AMD K6-2 in the range of 166-450 MHz and you can do
quite a lot with that, just probably not movies or recent games.

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Pelysma]

Machines with 72pin EDO were still being sold at this time.

Good point, but the OP said the mobo had only one memory slot. 72-pin
memory would have been installed in paired slots.

Considering it will probably only work with low density modules, I would
make sure what memory it can take by downloading the motherboard's owner's
manual if you no longer have it in your possession.

Good point again, and this time I'll just go ahead and agree with you; point
I overlooked.

 

[spodosaurus]

Good point, but the OP said the mobo had only one memory slot. 72-pin
memory would have been installed in paired slots.

Well caught! I'd forgotten that part of the post.

Good point again, and this time I'll just go ahead and agree with you; point
I overlooked.

--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Adrian C]

Many thanks indeed to all who have responded. I've kept silent because
I can't add anything further of much use, until I travel back to the
PC in question, which will probably be this weekend.

I can say one thing: I'm pretty sure I didn't mess up when running
Fdisk. All except for choosing the "large had drive" option, it was
just a case of hitting enter to select the 2 or 3 default options.

I will try to download a BIOS upgrade when (and if) I can find out the
exact model of the mobo. I've never done a BIOS upgrade before so I
hope it's self explanatory.

If I am able to upgrade the bios so that it can recognise the 40gb
drive, will I then have to reload Windows 98?

If I can't unpgrade the BIOS, I will try using Seagate's Disc Tools
utility which I have downloaded and created a boot disc from.

Again, if that does the trick, will I have to reload Win 98?

If neither of the above fixes work, it looks like I'll have to buy
either a PCI IDE controller card, or a second hard drive to run as a
slave - per the suggestions offered here.If I do that ( install a
second hard drive as a slave ), will Windows 98 recognise and utilise
the full capacity of the slave drive, even though it only sees 8mb of
the master drive?

I was thinking: the since the PC is 10 years old, it would make sense
to change the CMOS battery would it not? Are these easily available in
the high street? (the small town were the computer is kept has no
coputer stores!) Will anything drastic happen when I remove the old
battery?

Many thanks again,

Adrian C

 

[hdrdtd]

Would this do what you're looking for?

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/capacity/8_4/index.html

 

[Adrian C]

Would this do what you're looking for?

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/capacity/8_4/index.html

It looks promising. That's the utility I have already downloaded.
I'm wondering if there is any point in trying to do a BIOS upgrade if
this utility will do the trick. What do you (anyone) think? Obviously,
running this utility will be a lot easier, since I don't know what the
mobo model is. It will avoid having to open up the case and download
the BIOS upgrade..

Thanks

Adrian C

 

[Pelysma]

Many thanks indeed to all who have responded.

Can't speak for the others, but I came here this week needing help, and if I
can help someone else while here, that would be only fair.

I will try to download a BIOS upgrade when (and if) I can find out the
exact model of the mobo. I've never done a BIOS upgrade before so I
hope it's self explanatory.

Usually it downloads as a disk image to go on a floppy. You will probably
need to remove a jumper from the motherboard and then start the computer
with the floppy inserted. Then it's quite simple. Some systems, Compaq in
particular, have other ways of going about it, but the upgrade should come
with instructions. They warn you that you're doing something drastic, and
you are, but just be careful and it will all go just fine.

If I am able to upgrade the bios so that it can recognise the 40gb
drive, will I then have to reload Windows 98?

I think so. You might find that your disk appears as 36+ GB with an 8 GB
formatted partition on it and the rest empty. You would then have the
choice of completely deleting the existing partition and creating a single
large one, or creating a second partition and leaving the original one in
place. In the first case, you will have to reinstall Windows after
partitioning and formatting. In the second, Windows will be intact but the
remainder of the disk will be seen as another drive, maybe D:. The only
problem with this is that many programs expect to be installed on the same
drive as Windows, so the extra space will be available for media (mp3's for
instance) and not necessarily for programs.

Don't be upset about the 36+ GB size. A "40 GB" drive is usually "about" 40
billion bytes, and a true digital gigabyte is more than a billion, so the
computer counts a smaller number of larger units. This is not another
limit, just another way of counting the size of your disk.

If I can't unpgrade the BIOS, I will try using Seagate's Disc Tools
utility which I have downloaded and created a boot disc from.

Again, if that does the trick, will I have to reload Win 98?

Don't know, but I believe the answer will be similar to the second option
above. A software solution will probably only give you the
multiple-partition solution, with about five small partitions each seen as a
separate drive letter; and I would think Windows would remain intact that
way.

If neither of the above fixes work, it looks like I'll have to buy
either a PCI IDE controller card, or a second hard drive to run as a
slave - per the suggestions offered here.If I do that ( install a
second hard drive as a slave ), will Windows 98 recognise and utilise
the full capacity of the slave drive, even though it only sees 8mb of
the master drive?

If it can only recognize 8 GB per drive, it can only recognize 8GB on ANY
drive installed. However, Windows 98 is not the limiting factor; hardware
(wiring and a chip) on your motherboard is. Early editions of Windows 95
could only recognise 2 GB per partition, but if W98 has a limit, it's well
above the 40 GB you're trying to install. You are trying to work around
limits built into your motherboard's BIOS, unless you override it with a
supplemental BIOS on a Promise card or similar.

And, having read over the thread, I think the PCI controller card is your
BEST option, most likely to solve the problem most completely, and not as
expensive as you may fear. I used one in "this" W98 computer for a couple
of years ("this" in quotes since EVERY PIECE of the computer has been
replaced one or two components at a time with the possible exception of the
floppy drive!). The controller card worked great until the motherboard's
PCI bus went belly-up, and the present motherboard doesn't need it.

I was thinking: the since the PC is 10 years old, it would make sense
to change the CMOS battery would it not? Are these easily available in
the high street?

Some are, some are not. Fortunately, your computer is not very picky about
this battery. If you find a good photo battery that will fit and is the
correct voltage (number of cells, basically), it will work. The CMOS
battery is often soldered in place, especially if it's a Lithium battery,
but ten years ago alkalines or silver batteries were more common, usually a
flat round cell that tucked under a spring contact. NiCads seem a logical
choice, since we're used to recharging them, but they don't last the many
years you expect computer batteries to hold up.

Will anything drastic happen when I remove the old
battery?

Nothing drastic. You will lose CMOS settings including the system date/time
and information about installed drives, but the computer will revert to
default values and then restore most of this the next time you boot up.
One or two startups and you'll have it tweaked back into shape.

Many thanks again,

Adrian C

Hoping this is all helpful,

 

[David Maynard]

Many thanks indeed to all who have responded. I've kept silent because
I can't add anything further of much use, until I travel back to the
PC in question, which will probably be this weekend.

I can say one thing: I'm pretty sure I didn't mess up when running
Fdisk. All except for choosing the "large had drive" option, it was
just a case of hitting enter to select the 2 or 3 default options.

I will try to download a BIOS upgrade when (and if) I can find out the
exact model of the mobo. I've never done a BIOS upgrade before so I
hope it's self explanatory.

If I am able to upgrade the bios so that it can recognise the 40gb
drive, will I then have to reload Windows 98?

If I can't unpgrade the BIOS, I will try using Seagate's Disc Tools
utility which I have downloaded and created a boot disc from.

Again, if that does the trick, will I have to reload Win 98?

If neither of the above fixes work, it looks like I'll have to buy
either a PCI IDE controller card, or a second hard drive to run as a
slave - per the suggestions offered here.If I do that ( install a
second hard drive as a slave ), will Windows 98 recognise and utilise
the full capacity of the slave drive, even though it only sees 8mb of
the master drive?

A PCI IDE card will see the full capacity.

In any case you'll need to reinstall windows.

If you can't get an updated BIOS the free solution is to use a drive boot
overlay that loads a 'BIOS' IDE patch when the drive boots up.

The downside to those is that the drive only works properly if the boot
overlay is loaded first so if, for example, you boot from a plain DOS
floppy and then write to the drive from it you'll scramble the contents.

I was thinking: the since the PC is 10 years old, it would make sense
to change the CMOS battery would it not?

Not a bad idea.

Are these easily available in
the high street? (the small town were the computer is kept has no
coputer stores!)

They're often carried by general stores in the 'hearing aid' battery section.

Will anything drastic happen when I remove the old
battery?

You'll lose the BIOS settings and need to re-enter them.

 

[David Maynard]

It looks promising. That's the utility I have already downloaded.
I'm wondering if there is any point in trying to do a BIOS upgrade if
this utility will do the trick.

An updated BIOS is preferable because it's always there regardless of what
boots while the hard drive boot overlay comes off the hard drive (see my
other post).

The down side to a BIOS upgrade is there's a slight risk of rendering the
motherboard inoperative from a bad flash.

What do you (anyone) think? Obviously,
running this utility will be a lot easier, since I don't know what the
mobo model is. It will avoid having to open up the case and download
the BIOS upgrade..

You can often determine the motherboard from the BIOS code.

http://www.wimsbios.com/numbers.shtml

 

[spodosaurus]

Can't speak for the others, but I came here this week needing help, and if I
can help someone else while here, that would be only fair.




Usually it downloads as a disk image to go on a floppy. You will probably
need to remove a jumper from the motherboard

Not always, unless you need to reset the BIOS or you're talking about
some strange brand name computers using proprietary motherboards that
require this for some reason.

Nothing drastic. You will lose CMOS settings including the system date/time
and information about installed drives, but the computer will revert to
default values and then restore most of this the next time you boot up.
One or two startups and you'll have it tweaked back into shape.

Yep, and you should load the 'failsafe defaults' after you upgrade the
bios, anyway.


--
spammage trappage: remove the underscores to reply

I'm going to die rather sooner than I'd like. I tried to protect my
neighbours from crime, and became the victim of it. Complications in
hospital following this resulted in a serious illness. I now need a bone
marrow transplant. Many people around the world are waiting for a marrow
transplant, too. Please volunteer to be a marrow donor:
http://www.abmdr.org.au/
http://www.marrow.org/

 

[Adrian C]

They're often carried by general stores in the 'hearing aid' battery section.

Thank you, all, for the latestvery helpful replies. I have another,
possibly silly question: How do I determine the exact make and model
of the motherboard? I can't remember ever having seen a make and model
number printed on a mobo before. I know the computer ias an IBM, and
the BIOS is dated "copyright some-1980s-date-to-1996". It has a
Pentium processor. That's all I can remember.

Many thanks again,

Adrian C

 

[Pelysma]

Thank you, all, for the latestvery helpful replies. I have another,
possibly silly question: How do I determine the exact make and model
of the motherboard? I can't remember ever having seen a make and model
number printed on a mobo before.

What I've done is search the board for strings of numbers that *could be*
model numbers, printed along the edge or near the memory slots, and type
them into Google or some other search engine. That's how I learned my
Packard Bell 486 was an Intel Classic R board, even though the Intel name
wasn't printed there. On my W98 machine, the brand name and model doesn't
even look like one, but it's plain as day once you see it: SEA440BX is a
specific model of Intel board made a little later than yours. The SEA is
for Seattle, which has three 168-pin memory slots; there was also a
POR440BX, for Portland, which had four 72-pin slots.

Again, the Intel brand name is not prominent as Intel intended this board to
be OEM for different brands of computers. But if you find the string that is
the model number in a search engine, it will lead you where you want to go,
and if the number turns out not to be the model number, you'll learn
something different and still fun.

Having said that, I have an MSI board sitting here that has the model number
on a white sticker on the last EISA slot. I don't find MSI or the model
number anywhere else on the board. So, good luck, your mileage may vary.

 

[David Maynard]

Thank you, all, for the latestvery helpful replies. I have another,
possibly silly question: How do I determine the exact make and model
of the motherboard? I can't remember ever having seen a make and model
number printed on a mobo before. I know the computer ias an IBM, and
the BIOS is dated "copyright some-1980s-date-to-1996". It has a
Pentium processor. That's all I can remember.

If it's an IBM then there is a model number tag on the outer case somewhere.

 

[Adrian C]

If it's an IBM then there is a model number tag on the outer case somewhere.

THat's good to know! Thanks...

Adrian C

 

[BobbytheBrain]

PS, does anyone know what kind of RAM a PC of that (1996 approx) age
would take, and how much? It only had one RAM slot.

Let me put it this way. Intel's fantastic new instruction set, MMX,
appeared in 1997. So, what you have is a Pentium-1 class machine
somewhere in the 100-200mhz range. That era was before DDR and even
before SDRAM. Most of those machines use EDO RAM.

This is what a $1500 system in 1996 might include:

Intel 440FX chipset with 256k cache
166mhz CPU
16MB EDO RAM
1.28GB HD
2MB EDO PCI Video
15" Monitor

In my opinion, you will probably not find a BIOS upgrade for this
board. Honestly, you will be lucky just to find a manual unless
somebody at motherboards.org's happens to have something in their
archive.

 

[Pelysma]

Ok. I just don't understand what 10 gig and 40 gig drives have to do with
it if all you're trying to say is he screwed up.

Let's back up a bit.

There is no evidence that the OP "screwed up" anything. The problem is a
hardware issue common to many motherboards of the time this one was made,
caused by a design choice that seemed right at the time.

The limit in this case is 8.0 GB, or almost 8.4 billion bytes, sometimes for
that reason called 8.4GB. It is not a Windows issue, it's a BIOS firmware
issue. A 10 GB drive and a 40 GB drive would have exactly the same problem.

Similarly, there is a limit to 28-bit Logical Block Allocation at 128 GB
that is sometimes called 137 GB because it's about 137 billion bytes in
decimal numbers. The solution to this one is 48-bit LBA, which became almost
universal during 2002.

The Windows 95 limit was at 2.0 GB per partition. It could read and use all
of an 8 GB drive if partitioned. Windows 95OSR2 and Win98 have no such
limit.

There are at least three solutions.

First, if possible, the motherboard's BIOS may be updated, either by
flashing it or by replacing the chip.

Secondly, a "soft BIOS" may be installed on the disk that replaces the
motherboard's BIOS after the computer starts up; then the computer would
only see a portion of the disk until boot is complete, but once the soft
BIOS takes over, the whole disk can be used. This is a little bit flaky and
hard to recover if everything crashes, but works pretty well most of the
time. Western Digital's EZ-BIOS is a choice example.

Thirdly, an I/O card can be added to the PCI (or EISA) bus that has its own
BIOS, which again takes over from the motherboard's BIOS during boot. SCSI
works this way, and most such cards are seen as SCSI by the system. Promise
and Siig make cards of this kind that accept ordinary IDE drives.

There may be other solutions, one of which involves a trash can and a
computer store. These are just the ones I've seen.

 

[Pelysma]

Not if the BIOS doesn't understand drives larger than 32GB because it
still has to know where to put the heads even if it's a separate
partition.

This particular limit is 8 GB, not 32.

The portion of the disk that can be read, in this case 8 GB, can be
partitioned into smaller drives, but the part that can't be read can't be
partitioned. Some kind of BIOS change is needed.