I originall signed onto this site looking for information about a BIOS upgrade for an Aptiva 2170. I found someone asking would Windows XP run on this system, my answer is yes but it can painfully slow when you are starting new applications but think that may have to do with the size of the memory which is 126 Meg and so Windows has to create virtual memory in the hard drive to compensate and this can be a slow process as we all know. The reason why I am using an Aptiva is this, I blew up my Celeron PC when I pluged some old hardware (A graphics Tablet) into the parrallel part through a gender bender and forgot to consider the live 12 volt rail on the RS232 and then there was smoke and the black screen of PC now deceased.
Anyway I needed to get back on line, so I dug up this Aptiva from the garden shed (which had been sitting for at least five years). Originally it was running Windows 98 and had a 2Gig drive. It would not accept anything bigger so here is what I did.
1. Zero file formatted the 2Gb drive then formatted for FAT16, then loaded Windows XP
2. Zero file formatted a 40Gb drive and then formatted for FAT32.
3. Set the 2Gb drive to slave, set to 40Gb drive to master.
4. Put both drives on IDE1, start machine.
5. BIOS will display an error message. Hit F1 to see BIOS check hard drives,
all hard drives detected except large drive will only display its size, save and exit BIOS.
6. BIOS will display an error message, this will happen every time you start the machine just hit any key to continue.
7. Load XP on large harddrive, just remember when XP ask if you want to format drive to NTFS say no keep original FAT format on both drives. NTFS will not work.
8. Once you have XP running you can load all you favourite XP based programs onto the large drive, use the small drive to put junk data on it if you want.
9. Just rember you programs including internet will be a lot slower to run and you have to hit any key at start up after the BIOS message appears. Oh and FAT32 formatted hardrives can only store no more than 4Gb data files, so no big video files here.
10. The Zerofile format program comes from MAXTOR with any hardrive of theres you purchase and is really handy in fixing hardrives that are a bit funny.
Anyway I needed to get back on line, so I dug up this Aptiva from the garden shed (which had been sitting for at least five years). Originally it was running Windows 98 and had a 2Gig drive. It would not accept anything bigger so here is what I did.
1. Zero file formatted the 2Gb drive then formatted for FAT16, then loaded Windows XP
2. Zero file formatted a 40Gb drive and then formatted for FAT32.
3. Set the 2Gb drive to slave, set to 40Gb drive to master.
4. Put both drives on IDE1, start machine.
5. BIOS will display an error message. Hit F1 to see BIOS check hard drives,
all hard drives detected except large drive will only display its size, save and exit BIOS.
6. BIOS will display an error message, this will happen every time you start the machine just hit any key to continue.
7. Load XP on large harddrive, just remember when XP ask if you want to format drive to NTFS say no keep original FAT format on both drives. NTFS will not work.
8. Once you have XP running you can load all you favourite XP based programs onto the large drive, use the small drive to put junk data on it if you want.
9. Just rember you programs including internet will be a lot slower to run and you have to hit any key at start up after the BIOS message appears. Oh and FAT32 formatted hardrives can only store no more than 4Gb data files, so no big video files here.
10. The Zerofile format program comes from MAXTOR with any hardrive of theres you purchase and is really handy in fixing hardrives that are a bit funny.
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