How to replace 50 MB HD in old computer?

[Someone]

This is a unique situation. The computer is from around 1992 (a '386) and
is used for a DOS telephone voice mail system. The Chips & Technology
motherboard has only ISA slots.

The 50 MB hard drive is starting to fail, and they don't make them that small
anymore. All the telephone interface cards are ISA, so a contemporary
motherboard won't work. And I don't think they make any ISA controller
cards which might make a larger HD usable.

So, any ideas? Just go to the local recycler for a replacement hard drive?

Thanks.

 

[CJT]

This is a unique situation. The computer is from around 1992 (a '386) and
is used for a DOS telephone voice mail system. The Chips & Technology
motherboard has only ISA slots.

The 50 MB hard drive is starting to fail, and they don't make them that small
anymore. All the telephone interface cards are ISA, so a contemporary
motherboard won't work. And I don't think they make any ISA controller
cards which might make a larger HD usable.

So, any ideas? Just go to the local recycler for a replacement hard drive?

Thanks.

It might make more sense to look for an ISA card that will interface to
modern drives -- you might still find yourself dealing with a recycler,
but it could allow a simultaneous increase in capacity.

I'm pretty sure such cards were made -- I might even have one around
here somewhere.

 

[Rod Speed]

This is a unique situation.
Nope.

The computer is from around 1992 (a '386)

Fark, WAY past its useby date.

and is used for a DOS telephone voice mail system.
The Chips & Technology motherboard has only ISA slots.

The 50 MB hard drive is starting to fail, and
they don't make them that small anymore.

You can still buy them off ebay.

All the telephone interface cards are ISA,
so a contemporary motherboard won't work.

You can still get much more recent systems with ISA slots.

And I don't think they make any ISA controller
cards which might make a larger HD usable.
Wrong.

So, any ideas? Just go to the local
recycler for a replacement hard drive?

I'd get a much more recent system with ISA slots.

 

[Johnnie Leung]

And I don't think they make any ISA controller
cards which might make a larger HD usable.

They sure did, ISA cards with onboard BIOS, but not anymore. Promise made a
few under the 'EIDEMAX' name. You should be able to find them on eBay.
(There were a few others like GSI and DTC that no longer exist.)

OTOH, many Pentium III boards, and even some P4 boards, have ISA slots,
although your ISA card (and the software) might or might not work with them.

JL

 

[Michael Cecil]

This is a unique situation. The computer is from around 1992 (a '386) and
is used for a DOS telephone voice mail system. The Chips & Technology
motherboard has only ISA slots.

The 50 MB hard drive is starting to fail, and they don't make them that small
anymore. All the telephone interface cards are ISA, so a contemporary
motherboard won't work. And I don't think they make any ISA controller
cards which might make a larger HD usable.

So, any ideas? Just go to the local recycler for a replacement hard drive?

Thanks.

You could always install a modern motherboard that does have ISA slots
such as the Supermicro P4SCA-B. That'll cost you a bit more and you'd
need new RAM, an ATX case & power supply and a P4 processor, but at least
you could use your ISA telephone card (a modem?). Can't just upgrade the
phone system, eh?

 

[HenryNettles]

This is a unique situation. The computer is from around 1992 (a '386) and
is used for a DOS telephone voice mail system. The Chips & Technology
motherboard has only ISA slots.

The 50 MB hard drive is starting to fail, and they don't make them that small
anymore. All the telephone interface cards are ISA, so a contemporary
motherboard won't work. And I don't think they make any ISA controller
cards which might make a larger HD usable.

So, any ideas? Just go to the local recycler for a replacement hard drive?

Thanks.

If I was trying to get out of this in the easiest, fastest, cheapest way
possible, I would just go out to the garage and retrieve one of the 8 gig
IDE hard drives I have stored there. If your old motherboard has an IDE
controller, it should recognize the 8 gigger. It might only see the first
512 megs of the drive, but what do you care? The 8 gigger is basically
just a paper weight anyway.

 

[Mike Redrobe]

You can put in a modern drive. You might only see a fraction of its
true capacity (may be limited to 4Gig) , but it'll work.

You could always install a modern motherboard that does have ISA slots
such as the Supermicro P4SCA-B. That'll cost you a bit more and you'd
need new RAM, an ATX case & power supply and a P4 processor, but at
least you could use your ISA telephone card (a modem?).

....and would achieve nothing other than money burn if all he needs is
to slot in a fresh HDD.

Can't just upgrade the phone system, eh?

Maybe all the staff is used to the existing system ,and it works well?

 

[J. Clarke]

You can put in a modern drive. You might only see a fraction of its
true capacity (may be limited to 4Gig) , but it'll work.

It _should_ work. That doesn't mean that it _will_. The IDE spec didn't
have all the parameters nailed down in its early releases and a machine
that old may not work with a given brand and model of newer drive.

 

[wolfgang schneider]

motherboard won't work. And I don't think they make any ISA controller
cards which might make a larger HD usable.

So, any ideas? Just go to the local recycler for a replacement hard drive?

Thanks.

get a used scsi controller for isa and you will have access to gb-hdd !

 

[Arno Wagner]

This is a unique situation. The computer is from around 1992 (a '386) and
is used for a DOS telephone voice mail system. The Chips & Technology
motherboard has only ISA slots.

The 50 MB hard drive is starting to fail, and they don't make them that small
anymore. All the telephone interface cards are ISA, so a contemporary
motherboard won't work. And I don't think they make any ISA controller
cards which might make a larger HD usable.

So, any ideas? Just go to the local recycler for a replacement hard drive?

Have a look at industrial PC offerings. They should have ISA
controllers and disks that work with them. In this size range
you might even get an affordable flash-disk (IDE or DOM).

Alternatively look on ebay. Any ISA controller with a BIOS should
work.

Arno

 

[Eric Gisin]

Any IDE drive under 500MB will work. All my 10 year old drives still work.

The IDE BIOS is in your system BIOS, so swapping ISA IDE cards has no effect.

 

[Rod Speed]

Michael Cecil wrote

You can put in a modern drive. You might only see a fraction of its true
capacity (may be limited to 4Gig) ,

More likely to be limited to 512MB. No big
deal, thats still 10 times the current drive.

but it'll work.

 

[Rod Speed]

Mike Redrobe wrote

It _should_ work. That doesn't mean that it _will_.
The IDE spec didn't have all the parameters nailed
down in its early releases and a machine that old may
not work with a given brand and model of newer drive.

Very unlikely to not work.

 

[Rod Speed]

get a used scsi controller for isa and you will have access to gb-hdd !

What is the point when any IDE will give atleast 10 tims what the current drive
has.

Lot easier to find a replacement IDE.

 

[Rod Speed]

Any IDE drive under 500MB will work.

Any IDE over 500MB should work fine
too with the CHS for a 512M drive.

All my 10 year old drives still work.

I've got a few of those Indian ones that are now dead.

 

[wolfgang schneider]

What is the point when any IDE will give atleast 10 tims what the current drive
has.

Lot easier to find a replacement IDE.

a real good methusalem ? shit - better forget about .

 

[Rod Speed]

Rod Speed (e-mail address removed) wrote

a real good methusalem ?

Nope, any cheap IDE, new too.

The worst you might have to do is use 512M CHS values.

 

[Someone]

For the archive's sake, I'll reply to my own post.

I installed a new 20 GB ATA IDE hard drive and assigned CHS values for it
(1024 cylinders) in the BIOS (the original disk was "Type 14".) This
made the machine see it as a 504 MB drive.

Next, I used a DOS 6.22 boot disk to FDISK it without large drive support,
making it FAT-16, and formatted it with /S to write the boot files.

Next, I jumpered the new drive as "master with non-ATA slave," hooked up
the old hard drive jumpered as slave, and specified "Type 14" for the primary slave
drive in the BIOS.

When the machine booted up, it saw the newly formatted drive as C and
the old hard drive as D.

Next, I used XCOPY /E to copy the entire contents of the old drive (D) to
the new hard drive (C), making sure not to overwrite IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS,
or COMMAND.COM. (The original disk was also DOS 6.22.) The first two
of these files must occupy specific sectors on the hard drive for it to boot,
so overwriting them will cause boot problems.

Finally, I re-jumpered the new drive simply as "master", removed the old
hard drive, changed the primary-slave in the BIOS back to "None" and
I was done. The machine works better than ever!

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Any IDE drive under 500MB will work. All my 10 year old drives still work.

The IDE BIOS is in your system BIOS, so swapping ISA IDE cards has no effect.

Since when?

 

[Eric Gisin]

Since when?

How many ISA IDE cards had a BIOS? Even VLB IDE was controlled by system BIOS.