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Help Installing a IBM 10mb into a 5150.

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vega400

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Oct 2, 2009
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I have been into pc's since 1988. My first was a Tandy 100tx, I put in a v20 upgraded the memory to 640k, I even overclocked the memory using hexeditor in the config. Put together many pc's but this is my first 5150. I would like to install a 10mb full height hard drive into my 5150 but have no idea in going about this. I have a st125 in it as I bought it but want the older 10 mb in it. I am used to going into a bios to set it up but don't know how to modify the bios in the 5150. I am setting this up for my grandkids to be to show the games my son used to play like "Jumpjoe" etc..Please help.
Thank you very much
 
Here's the important thing: The 5150's BIOS has nothing to do with your hard drive! When the 5150 was produced, a hard disk was not common equipment, and it has no provisions for it. What you need to do is identify the controller, as its the CONTROLLER's BIOS you need to worry about. Though even in this case, it's usually a jumper setting or something, not quite as easy/simple as just setting something in software...
 
vega400 said:
I would like to install a 10mb full height hard drive into my 5150 but have no idea in going about this. I have a st125 in it as I bought it but want the older 10 mb in it. I am used to going into a bios to set it up but don't know how to modify the bios in the 5150.
Click to expand...

There's no setup program on 8086/8088 machines, just dip switches on the motherboard to set the hardware configuration. The BIOS doesn't support hard disks either; the controller has its own ROM. XT hard disk controllers do have a program to set up and low-level format the drive. You usually enter it by starting DEBUG and typing G C800:5.

I'm not sure why you'd want to replace the ST125 (a 20 MB drive) with a smaller 10 MB one. If you do so, you may want to make sure that the 5150 has an upgraded power supply, because the original 63-watt PSU isn't enough for full-height hard disks.

vega400 said:
I am setting this up for my grandkids to be to show the games my son used to play like "Jumpjoe" etc..Please help.
Click to expand...

You mean Janitor Joe? I played that once a long time ago. Not a bad clone of Miner 2049er, which also has a PC version.
 
Welcome to these forums.

Also, confirm for us that the drive you wish to install is a Seagate ST-412.

As southbird wrote, you need to identify the controller for us. Make and model number. We need that to work out if your controller can support the particular 10 MB drive, and if it does, tell you how to configure your controller to work with that drive. Then, you may need to low-level format the drive (followed by an FDSK/FORMAT operation) and there are different ways that that is done, dependent on the controller make/model.
 
First of all thank you all for your replies. I wanted to install the 10mb as it is a full height and wanted to show the kids the physical size and the capacity.
The controller is a WDXT-GEN. It has no jumpers. Western Digital I imagine.
Kinda funny asking this being simple to you guys. On my everyday pc I run a LSI Megaraid pci-e u320 scsi controller running 8 Cheetahs 15,000 rpm u320 drives in RAID 0. My storage array has 14 u320 10,000 rpm drives running RAID 5.
 
vega400 said:
On my everyday pc I run a LSI Megaraid pci-e u320 scsi controller running 8 Cheetahs 15,000 rpm u320 drives in RAID 0. My storage array has 14 u320 10,000 rpm drives running RAID 5.
Click to expand...

You have 24 320GB 10k RPM drives in a machine. That must get might toasty, thats 7TB of space. Pray tell why?
 
The IBM WD12 has 306 cylinders, 4 heads, 17 sectors/track (as it turns out, same as that for an ST-412).

As for your controller. It is documented at http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/hard-di...L-CORPORATION-Two-MFM-ST506-412-driv-227.html From what I'm reading there (the HARD DRIVE CONFIGURATION table), there are five versions of that controller: F300, F320, F335, F336 and F340. Since yours is presently controlling a 20MB drive (of 615/4 geometry), you will probably find either "F300" or "F320" on a sticker on the controller's ROM.

Hopefully you have the F300 version because the WDXT-GEN User's Guide indicates that that version alone also has dynamic formatting, which will allow the WD12 to be used on that controller. If you don't have the F300 version, then from what I'm reading, you won't be able to use the WD12 on that controller.

Do you see F300, F320, F335, F336 or F340 on your controller?
 
The drives are 147gb, u320 is the transfer rate 320mb a sec.
My RAID 0 transfers at 650mb sec writes and 550mb reads. My array with 14 drives are in a HP storageworks array and cool very well with 2 power supplies. My pc with the RAID 0 is in a SuperMicro case and has a backplane for 8 drives and is made for the drives so it has 5 fans and 2 fans in the power supply.
 
Yes it is a F300 ver 12 on the sticker. I dloaded the specs and it stated the size drives and it went from 21mb on up. So I don't know what is up. So I have to use debug huh. Never have. A newbie to this. I also have a Leading Edge 8088 with 512k 2 floppies, no hard drive. It has everything built into the mboard. I disabled the video and put in a vega VGA card so I can at least use my vga monitors.
 
WARNING: This process will destroy any contents of the WD12 drive.

1. Get the WDXT-GEN User's Guide (used later) from the link that Chuck provided.

2. Create a DOS boot diskette.

3. Onto that diskette, copy DEBUG.COM, FDISK.COM and FORMAT.COM

4. Replace 20MB drive with IBM WD12.

5. Power up with boot diskette in A:

6. Follow the FORMAT INSTRUCTIONS section of the WDXT-GEN User's Guide.

Note: We expect that you'll see the message described at step 2B.
Note: When asked by the controller if you are dynamically configuring the drive, answer Y
Note: When then asked by the controller for the disk characteristics, you would enter 306 4 307 296 11 5
Note: When then asked by the controller if you are virtually configuring the drive, answer N

Allow low-level format to complete.

7. Boot from boot diskette then run FDISK to create a partition (also making it active).

8. Boot from boot diskette then run FORMAT to format C: (FORMAT C: /S)
 
Thank you all for your help

Thank you all for your help

Thanks again everybody who helped. If anybody needs help with 386 till now with there pc's like overclocking a 486, up till now just ask, or scsi.
 
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