DOS-FDISK does not recognize a 2 GB hard disk
Peter Schultz
I have a 512 MB hard disk and now I installed a 2 GB hard disk as
second drive. FDISK from MS-DOS 6.2 finds only two 512 MB drives.
When I boot OS/2 Warp from floppy the OS/2-FDISK recognizes
one 512 MB and one 2.16 GB hard disk. That's what I expect!
Unfortunately MS-DOS ignores partitions made by OS/2.
Bye the way: HELP FDISK tells me that FDISK can create partitions
up to 2 GB!
What make I wrong? Is there any solution for my problem?
vgkpa...@lynx.bc.ca
On 1997-05-02 schu...@metronet.de said:
sc>Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
sc>I have a 512 MB hard disk and now I installed a 2 GB hard disk as
sc>second drive. FDISK from MS-DOS 6.2 finds only two 512 MB drives.
sc>When I boot OS/2 Warp from floppy the OS/2-FDISK recognizes
sc>one 512 MB and one 2.16 GB hard disk. That's what I expect!
sc>Unfortunately MS-DOS ignores partitions made by OS/2.
sc>Bye the way: HELP FDISK tells me that FDISK can create partitions
sc>up to 2 GB!
sc>What make I wrong? Is there any solution for my problem?
You should use the FDISK for the particular OS that you plan on using. For
example, if you are using OS/2 WARP, then use the FDISK.EXE from the OS/2
command prompt or FDISKPM.EXE (gui). Generally speaking, it is not a good
idea to mix and match FDISK utility functions with different OS.
Second, you need to write down what version of MS-DOS simce many people just
*assume* DOS is DOS. Actually, there are different versions and flavours of
DOS out there. Some versions of DOS are more limited in their capacity than
others.
Third, check your motherboard and on-board BIOS. If you don't know what I
am talking about, you need the help of a computer guru-buddy since this is
not for the faint of heart. Print this message out for your guru-friend to
read. If you BIOS is older than 1994, chances are your BIOS (Basic Input
Output Software) cannot handle the larger drives by itself. BIOS will need
help. Help comes in the form of a disk that should have come with the 2 Gb
drive when you bought it. Most often that disk is called ONTRACK DISK
MANAGER SOFTWARE or something like that. You will need to install ONTRACK
DISK MANAGER (ODM) which will enable DOS to "see" your 2 GB drive. OS/2
being a better and newer generation design already "sees" the 2 GB.
BTW, you need to read all the DOCS carefully to see how ODM will affect
other system software running on your computer. For example, some ODM's
require a separate driver to be installed to run with OS/2 or Win95 (heaven
forbid!). Newer ODM'S are more idiot-proof.
Fourth, in the unlikely event that what I've said so far does not solve your
particular problem, you may need a separate EIDE hard-drive controller card
that has built-in large drive recognition. Then you have to shell out the
money to buy it.
Victor
---- Victor Khong ---- eMail: vgkpa...@lynx.bc.ca -----
Net-Tamer V 1.08.1 - Registered
Osmo Vuorio
In article <5kde39$f...@news.zentrale.metronet.de>, Peter Schultz <schu...@metronet.de> says:
>
>I have a 512 MB hard disk and now I installed a 2 GB hard disk as
There are at least two different reasons for this. Either the
big drive is not currently using the lba transform or the
bios does not support the lba transform. You may prove this
easy by the next: ftp://ftp.microhouse.com/MHUTILS/IDEID.ZIP
Osmo
Richard Slobod
msali...@hotmail.com wrote:
>
>Peter Schultz wrote:
>>
>> I have a 512 MB hard disk and now I installed a 2 GB hard disk as
>> second drive. FDISK from MS-DOS 6.2 finds only two 512 MB drives.
>
>EIDE controller or a special software driver. The controller is a better
>solution (fewer compatibility problems) and should cost about $80.
You don't need an EIDE controller to recognize large drives under DOS
(nor would that help, although it would improve performance over an
old non-enhanced IDE interface). What you need is a BIOS with LBA
support (or, as mentioned, a software driver), which should already be
present in any remotely recent machine. Mostly likely LBA support is
turned off in the CMOS setup and simply needs to be enabled.