Dell 486/33 handle a Big Hard Disk? > 540 Mb?
bashir Akram
I have been given an ole Dell 486/33, with a 220 Mb hard disk;
I would like to replace the disk with a bigger one,
is a 540 Mb the the largest size it can handle?
Is it a problem with the Motherboard? IDE controller?
or will windows 95 be able to see a large hard disk?
--
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments there are
consequences -Illich, Ivan.
Email: ba...@bash.demon.co.uk
Christopher Muto
bashir,
Any large hard disk (3.5-6.5 being the popular sizes currently at a cost
of $200-$200USD) will be fine. The popular disks from Western Digital,
Maxtor, Quantum, etc come with insturctions on what to do to get your
system to reconize these drives. Basically, it entails that you intend
to boot from the new disk (using it as your primary drive, and I would
recomend getting rid of the 325mb that you have now once you move your
data over) and that you run a 'hard disk setup utility' that they
include with the drive. This utility puts a small program onto the disk
that is read each time that you boot the machine. It serves as a
translation between the limited hard disk controller and the new hard
disk drive. Your PC will be configured as if it had a 509mb hard disk
drive installed but the utility program will allow for it to address the
entire drive (though you may have to partition it into multiple 2mb
partitions (depending on size)). The utility that comes with Maxtor and
Western Digital (and perhaps other as well but I can say for sure) has a
program that will allow you to copy over the entire contents of the
current drive to the new drive (provided you do your homework and
correctly configure one a a master the other as a slave - you must know
the jumper settings of your current drive to do this).
Good luck.
-Christopher Muto
PS. Quantum is a UK based company.
Christopher Muto
Jerry Gordon wrote:
>
> I have had both a 540 and now an 850 meg drive in my 486/33. The 540
> was no problem, but the 850 is not supported by the Phoenix BIOS that
> came with the original system. I had a Maxtor drive. I had to do
> some tricks to get their BIOS recognized instead of the Dell BIOS that
> came with the system, but it wasn't a big problem. I can't remember
> what I had to do exactly, but I just followed instructions and I was
> OK.
>
> Of course, I have outgrown the 486/33 and am past ready to upgrade.
>
> Good luck.
Jerry,
Good point. Drives is the 540mb-1gb range could be incompatible with
certain Dell 486 computers. I have not have any problems with any drive
over 1gb and believe that the devices became universally compatiable
after that point. In fact I had trouble with a 540mb Maxtor I bought
from DellWare on their recomendation for upgradeing a 433/l (they can't
know everything). After my patience ran out with the drives random
hesitation I called Maxtor adn they confirmed and incompatibility of
that particular model. This is no longer an issue with current drives
sold in the market.
-Christopher Muto
Jerry Gordon
Gary
Greetings Bashir..
It would seem that these folks are forgetting about the differences
between IDE vs. EIDE as far as the maximum size disk that can be
intertained. As surmised, the IDE limit was 540MB. This limit was
extended when the EIDE format was finally introduced by Western
Digital. *IF* your system is still running IDE then there will be a
limitation to how large your drive can be, but, an inexpensive, EIDE
interface card coupled with disabling the motherboard's controller
along with a potential BIOS upgrade (this may or may not be needed)
will allow you to stick in any size EIDE hard disk manufactured today.
But your absolutely correct about the 540MB limit.. It somewhat
surprises me that these folks didn't recognize it.. Perhaps they were
too young when the previous standard was out.. (??)
Cheers,
Gary
Any comments to this can be directed in the thread.. I purposely use a
fictitious email return address to the amount of SPAM being sent
(unfortunately) from the US..
On Wed, 14 Jan 1998 23:45:36 -0500, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell you
wrote:
Christopher Muto
Gary,
The hard disk set-up utility that I was talking about in my original
post solves this IDE->EIDE communications issue. The 'BIOS Patch' that
the utility installs on the hard disk does the LBA translation that the
older IDE (non-EIDE) controllers can't do by themselves. So, given the
use of this software, you can install a large drive in an old system and
reconize the entire volume (and not install a new controller card).
Works great (with the exception of some specific drives in the 540mb-1gb
range discussed in another part of this thread).
-Christopher Muto