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a new AT&T 486SX computer that I may have toasted..... :(

I went down to my stash of drives and dug out a WD AC21200. You computer's got the right number--2484 cylinders; it's printed plain as day on the label. Also:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/legacy/Legacy.asp?Model=AC21200

Even gives landing zone and WPC numbers.

The next thing I would do is to get a copy of Spinrite and run it on the drive--do a surface analysis. Then we can talk about partitioning, formatting, etc.

First things first.
 
Chuck(G) said:
I went down to my stash of drives and dug out a WD AC21200. You computer's got the right number--2484 cylinders; it's printed plain as day on the label. Also:

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/legacy/Legacy.asp?Model=AC21200

Even gives landing zone and WPC numbers.

The next thing I would do is to get a copy of Spinrite and run it on the drive--do a surface analysis. Then we can talk about partitioning, formatting, etc.

First things first.
Click to expand...

What is WPC?

and holy cow, spinrite is $80? good grief. is there any free alternatives or free versions?
 
WPC = Write Pre-Compensation (setting it to the highest cylinder+1 means that it won't ever be engaged)

Well, you want an older version of Spinrite anyway. Do a search on the forum--maybe someone has a copy of it.
 
The older versions of SpinRite aren't for IDE drives... MFM/RLL only.

Concentrate on the Maxtor. See if you can get the full size with a FAT32 FDISK.
 
even with the maxtor at full size, that probably won't go in the 486dx, since dos can only go to 8gb with 4 partitions of 2gb. So thats pretty much a seperate project now. I sorta want this caviar drive to work with the 486 for now. but I might as well do the maxtor real quick.
 
Stone said:
The older versions of SpinRite aren't for IDE drives... MFM/RLL only.

Concentrate on the Maxtor. See if you can get the full size with a FAT32 FDISK.
Click to expand...

The AT register interface is pretty much the same between ATA and IDE drives. Probably any 90's version of Spinrite will work just fine.

And there's no way that Maxtor is a 2GB drive--it's 15GB, so it's doubtful that your system will play nice with it with out a DDO or a different controller.
 
Chuck(G);237884And there's no way that Maxtor is a 2GB drive--it's 15GB said:
Thats why I've decided to not use it in the 486, but just use it on my Pentium 200 mmx.

I'll be using the caviar on the 486, which is acting dumb with HDDs right now
Click to expand...
 
yeah, I was wondering about that, I was looking up hard drives, precomp and stuff, and I saw there was some limitations at various capacities, so maybe I should try getting a smaller hard drive? Cant I input less heads than what my hard drive has to simulate that?
 
I know that you can create a 504MB partition with a FAT32 OS and that will work in a 486 with a BIOS that doesn't support large drives.

Of course, a smaller drive will work, too. :)

An XTIDE will work, too.
 
If it supports drives larger than 504MB, there will be an option for translation (or some other name) that lets you specifiy Large or Normal.
Make sure it's set to Large.

Also I'm not sure about using FAT32 - since normal MS-DOS versions wont be able to read it which isn't ideal on a 486.
FAT16 partitions can be up to 2.1Gb so it's big enough he can have a single partition (since he's using the 1.2Gb WDC now I beleive).
 
There is an IDE Block mode with enable or disable, but I don't know if thats right. I can use windows 98 to partition in FAT16 right? I'm actually looking into that right now. Since I've had some issues with this WDC drive with a click during post (which, oddly, it doesn't do anymore, I have a thread in the pentium section about that) and I'm using the newest spinrite (don't ask) to check it over.

if my bios doesn't support drives over 504mb, can't I partition this drive into 2 504mb partitions? would that work?

I'm starting to run out of time for this week :( after another 2 hours, I'll be outta here till monday,and I won't be able to do stuff till wednesday cuz of work :(
 
No, it can only see 504Mb of the drive. So a single 504Mb partition is all you'll be allowed to access.

Windows 98 is definately FAT16 friendly, but I just can't remember what options are available in FDISK off the top of my head.

FYI: On a 486, 500 megs is heaps.
Another edit: To get past the 500Mb limitation you can use Drive Overlay Software - tools like OnTrack etc which remove the disk size limitation when you boot up. Felt obligated to make sure you knew about that, personally I wouldn't bother, 500Mb is heaps.
 
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WIN98 gives you the option for 'large drives'. If you create a 504MB partition with this option then install DOS onto it you can use that 504MB drive on a machine that doesn't have a translating BIOS. I use a WINME startup disk on a Pentium machine to do this so I can use a one or two GB drive on a 486 without a translating BIOS. It only allows for one 504 MB partition but, hey, it's my drive and I'll use it any way I want. :)
 
I want to use that wdc 1.2gb drive, it seems to be more healthy, as it doesn't get hot to the touch, and doesn't have bad sectors that scandisk detects. The maxtor had bad sectors, but maybe thats because it was kinds formatted wrong? idk.

there is a drive overlay for WD drives in there, would that work the same?

I could always just do 504mb, since I wouldn't be using that much anyway, maybe some sc2k, tyrian, etc.
 
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