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Preset Hard Drive tables in BIOS - other options?

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phreakindee

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I have a 386 machine with an odd proprietary NCR(?) BIOS. I want to replace the hard drive, which sounds like it's going bad, but don't know what to replace it with.

When I access the setup, I only get options to select from a table of possible hard drive configurations. There's no options in to input custom heads, cylinders etc. Only this screen:

HARD DRIVE CONFIG OPTIONS

The type I have now is the drive it came with, a 40MB Connor IDE drive. I've looked through dozens of eBay hard drives and have yet to find a single one that matches any of the possible configurations that is listed in the hard drive table.

Looks like this machine is limited to 1024 cylinder drives maximum, being a 1989-era machine and such. I can't find any info on this BIOS so I've given up trying to upgrade that.

Is there a possibility a drive close to one of the combinations (like this one) will work anyways or am I just screwed until I find an exact match? Thanks
 
As long as the number of sectors per track, cylinders and heads of the new drive is greater than your selection in the table, it should work.

If you want to keep the current hard drive controller, do consider a DDO, such as SpeedStor to get around your problem.
 
If it's a desktop, another option is to use a controller with an onboard BIOS if you have a free slot. You could even use a SCSI controller and hard drive and then you wouldn't have to worry about the NCR BIOS. But if you have a laptop then Chuck(G) has the right answer.
 
It is a desktop, upgrades are possible - thanks for the info guys! I'll for sure be following one of those suggestions or possibly a couple of them to see how things go.
 
How did it turned out? Have you managed to use unsupported hardrive on your computer? I have the same problem, maximum capacity for the disk is 80MB and the smallest drive I have has 212MB. I can't get past the bios hdd-error screen...
 
jpx72 said:
How did it turned out? Have you managed to use unsupported hardrive on your computer? I have the same problem, maximum capacity for the disk is 80MB and the smallest drive I have has 212MB. I can't get past the bios hdd-error screen...
Click to expand...


It turned out nicely. I got a 400MB drive and chose the drive selection from the table in the BIOS that closest matched the capacity without going over in specs for cyls/heads/etc. It ended up only being able to use about 200MB but that's more than enough for what I want the machine for.
 
phreakindee said:
I have a 386 machine with an odd proprietary NCR(?) BIOS. I want to replace the hard drive, which sounds like it's going bad, but don't know what to replace it with.

When I access the setup, I only get options to select from a table of possible hard drive configurations. There's no options in to input custom heads, cylinders etc. Only this screen:

HARD DRIVE CONFIG OPTIONS

The type I have now is the drive it came with, a 40MB Connor IDE drive. I've looked through dozens of eBay hard drives and have yet to find a single one that matches any of the possible configurations that is listed in the hard drive table.

Looks like this machine is limited to 1024 cylinder drives maximum, being a 1989-era machine and such. I can't find any info on this BIOS so I've given up trying to upgrade that.

Is there a possibility a drive close to one of the combinations (like this one) will work anyways or am I just screwed until I find an exact match? Thanks
Click to expand...

How about the entry in the table that is a bunch of zeros? Does selecting that one give you the option of inputing your own values? The manual to the 386 motherboards that I bought have something like this, but they say something about only being able to use it to test the drive, not use it normally.

Sean
 
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