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Can you format a IDE 120GB as a 20GB HDD?

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ardsleytank

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So yesterday, I picked up an old 386 No-Name PC out of the recycler's box at the place I'm interning with.

Since it was once one of their customer's computers, I had to let them keep the HDD's. (Don't worry, they're keeping them)

So now, the only HDD I have is an IDE 120GB. But, after an hour of fiddling, I can't get the computer to recognize it.

I pulled the 20GB drive out of my old Gateway, and voila!, it recognized it and tried to boot the Win2000 on it, failing miserably in the process.


So what I'd like to know is, can you format a larger drive as a smaller drive? I.e, 120GB as a 20GB...

Thanks!
Peter
 
If the drive has jumpers to reduce the drive size, you may be able to do what you want. However, by the time 120GB drives were common, they didn't have that option.

Why not use the 120GB drive in your Gateway and the 20GB drive on your 386?
 
That's an interesting thought... If I put both drives in the Gateway, and I copied over everything to the 120GB, then pulled out the 20GB, would the Gateway boot?

If I put the 120GB as master of course...
 
Some drives have jumpers to select a smaller capacity. I don't recall any with a 20GB option; typically were set to one of the standard size breaks like 500MB, 8GB, 32GB, or 120GB. Anything else puts one in the crazy world of the DDO in order to partition the drive.

The best option currently would be to find an IDE to CF adapter and a nice small CF card.

What magic 386 do you have that recognizes a 20GB hard drive?


Edit: Disk cloning software will allow the transfer of all files from the 20GB drive to the 120GB and result in a bootable 120GB drive. The cloned drive will often have a less efficient layout than doing an install on the drive directly.
 
kerbizfan, money's a little tight at the moment, so I am looking for a quick fix. But I will definitely look into it.

As for the magic, I don't know... Maybe it's grateful I saved it from scrap? ;)
 
Looks good to me, and I'm pretty sure the ol' Gateway is up to specs.

Definitely going to give this a try... Thanks for the link!
 
Clonezilla and most other disk cloning tools are best run from a bootable CD. Can't really clone a drive while running on the drive and you want to run no other software during the cloning process.

Watch the prompts carefully. All disk clone software make it far too easy to clone in the wrong direction.
 
Actually, a 20 GB drive may still support CHS (cylinder, head, sector) addressing (for at least the first 8GB), so may work with an overlay just fine on a 386.

The 120GB drive is likely LBA48 ATA6 only, so it won't support CHS as a fall back mode, and even with an overlay won't work on a computer that old.
 
HoJoPo said:
Actually, a 20 GB drive may still support CHS (cylinder, head, sector) addressing (for at least the first 8GB), so may work with an overlay just fine on a 386.

The 120GB drive is likely LBA48 ATA6 only, so it won't support CHS as a fall back mode, and even with an overlay won't work on a computer that old.
Click to expand...

My 386/40 sees a 8.4 GB Maxtor. Also, it has no problems with a 4 GB Ultra CF. All depends on the BIOS.

Late edit: Let me qualify the above just a little. My 386 is using a SIIG HD/Floppy controller with its own BIOS. I apologize and did not intend to mislead anyone.
 
Last edited:
Stone said:
FWIW, a 386 isn't going to recognize a 20GB (or even an 8GB) drive anyway. You need a 528MB drive or smaller.
Click to expand...
The 386 just needs a bit help in the form of DDO, a hdd controller with bios extensions supporting larger drives, XT-IDE rom on a nic, etc if the original bios doesn't see it.
 
krebizfan said:
Some drives have jumpers to select a smaller capacity. I don't recall any with a 20GB option; typically were set to one of the standard size breaks like 500MB, 8GB, 32GB, or 120GB. Anything else puts one in the crazy world of the DDO in order to partition the drive.
Click to expand...

The only large IDE drives that had a 20 GB limit jumper was the IBM deathstar variety. I know that the 60, 80, 120 and 160 GB versions had the 20 GB limit jumper.

Though if you use one of those drives, you had better either not care about the data on the drive or have a backup because those drives have failure rates approaching 100% after only a year of use.
 
Man, this just get's weirder and weirder...

So, I was able to get the files transferred to the 120GB drive. Now I can play with the 20GB.

So I hook up the Maxtor(20gb) up as what should be the master, end plug of the ribbon cable into the port marked IDE1 on the Motherboard.

Turn it on, but it detects it as "Primary Slave". Shouldn't it be master?

Computer ignores the previous statement, and tries to boot Win2000. Obviously, it won't work since it was previously for a Pentium 4 machine...

So, I hook up the CD-drive on the top end of the ribbon and the Maxtor on the lower one. Then when I try to boot it up, it only sees the CD drive!

Now, I know I must be doing something wrong. Anybody got some ideas?

Thanks again.
 
Not just Master/Slave jumpers. Some IDE drives needed different setups to be a lone drive as opposed to sharing the cable.

Cable Select (the third option) generally won't work unless all drives and controller were made in 1999 or later.
 
Hmm, I'll have to check the jumpers on everything...

I did, however, find out why my 386 is "magic".

It's not a 386. I had a stupid moment, and didn't think to check what the BIOS said it had. I just assumed it was a 386 since it was an AT Motherboard.

Turns out, it's a Pentium MMX, which is a Pentium 1 with some upgrades.

So, I apologize for posting in the wrong forum. My brain had a blue-screen moment.

Thanks for all your help.
 
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