the largest HD used?

[evildragon]

What's the largest HD you ever used on your vintage PC?

On my IBM PS/2 Model 25 (8086 monochrome version), I managed to get a 3GB IDE HD to run (via an old parallel port enclosure).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v395/Evilweredragon/ibm3GB.jpg

I tried a 250GB drive for shits and giggles, but the enclosure fails to even report to the computer with that. An 8GB drive DID work, but it wanted 4 partitions (since FAT16 is 2GB max), and the 2 partitions for my 3GB was enough.

[Trixter]

I think 8G is the absolute maximum for a single drive, but I'd love to be proven wrong.

3G is impressive. I think the only way to beat that is to use a SCSI adapter instead of a parallel-port adapter (same capacity but SCSI will be an order of magnitude faster).

[evildragon]

Yea, SCSI would be so much better. But all ISA slots are filled.

Anyway, it works about on par with the internal MFM drive.

Oh, and I found out my enclosure supports slaving. two 8GB drives connected.. 8 partitions total! XD

I wish there was a way to use all of it on FAT16.

The utility with the enclosure, does allow custom format, and when I forced a full 8GB for FAT16, while I could read and write, it ALWAYS says 0 Bytes free (even though that's obviously not true).

8 partitions of 2GB. Wonder what I'll do with that. I might just go back to the single 3GB drive. Not really gonna fill that anyway.

EDIT: Oh, incase you want to know what the enclosure is, it doesn't have a make or model on the enclosure itself, but the chip inside says:
OnSpec
90C26
9624PRC
Pat. Pend.

[evildragon]

UPDATE: Got a 20GB drive. Formatted with 10 partitions...

That is the biggest I'll go..

Is there any way to "merge" the partitions like a RAID?

[ahm]

Is there any way to "merge" the partitions like a RAID?

Sure, don't make any partitions and it will appear as one big drive. :D

[modem7]

CheckIt finds it 2,61 times faster than the original XT drive (b.t.w. what drive is that?) and shows a very good access time of 2,0 ms.
The original XT drive was a Seagate ST-412, and the specs for that show an average access time of 85 mS.
The FFD-250 has an access time of less than 0.1 mS and so the 2 mS that CheckIt shows must be the overhead generated by the motherboard and SCSI card.

[evildragon]

Sure, don't make any partitions and it will appear as one big drive. :D
FAT16 has a maximum of 2GB you know.

With a 20GB drive, there is no "one big drive" that can be made.

[Trixter]

Anyway, it works about on par with the internal MFM drive.


Then your internal MFM needs some optimization :-) Have you run spinrite or Norton Calibrate to see if the interleave is optimal? (Note: 1:1 interleave is NOT always optimal!)

[Plasma]

I have a 40GB Seagate drive in my XT, using an ACARD IDE/SCSI adapter with a TMC-850M SCSI card. I don't need the space, but it's nice to have a quiet and fast hard drive. :)

[evildragon]

Then your internal MFM needs some optimization :-) Have you run spinrite or Norton Calibrate to see if the interleave is optimal? (Note: 1:1 interleave is NOT always optimal!)
Yes, I did do Spinrite.. Half the drive is bad sectors. It's a crap drive.

The speed I get is fine for me. I'm not complaining.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why did you bother using the Acard when you could have just used a 40GB SCSI drive instead? Acard SCSIDE is expensive. Put it to good use with a a CF card or something.

[Plasma]

I already had the IDE drive and don't have any SCSI drives, so it was cheaper just to buy the adapter. They aren't that expensive.

[vwestlife]

An 8GB drive DID work, but it wanted 4 partitions (since FAT16 is 2GB max), and the 2 partitions for my 3GB was enough.
How long does it take DOS to count the free space on the partition the first time you run DIR after booting? My original 4.77 MHz 8088 IBM PC takes about five seconds count the free space on a 20 MB drive, and even on my 9.54 MHz NEC V20 CompuAdd 810 there is a noticeable delay... I can only imagine how long it would take on a 2048 MB partition!

For me, the nostalgia of using an XT-class computer would be ruined by using a modern hard drive. I just love the sound of the Seagate ST-225 hard drive in my PC. It makes a nice deep rumble, and the soft, squeaky sound of the stepper motor is very pleasant compared to the harsh clacking and chattering of most IDE drives. In fact, years later I put a 12 GB Quantum "Bigfoot" drive in my Cyrix 6x86MX Windows 95 machine, just because I prefer the deeper sound of a 5¼" hard drive. Both drives have worked flawlessly for me, despite the somewhat spotty reliability record of both Seagate MFM and Quantum Bigfoot drives.

[evildragon]

I think it's 20 seconds... not sure, never counted...

[Trixter]

How long does it take DOS to count the free space on the partition the first time you run DIR after booting? My original 4.77 MHz 8088 IBM PC takes about five seconds count the free space on a 20 MB drive, and even on my 9.54 MHz NEC V20 CompuAdd 810 there is a noticeable delay... I can only imagine how long it would take on a 2048 MB partition!


Mine takes 17 seconds for any of my three 128MB partitions. But that's a one-time delay; after that, it has the value cached somewhere.

I'm using PC DOS 2K (IBM PC-DOS 7.01 with y2k fixes). I tried the same DIR with freedos and it took OVER 80 SECONDS :-(

[vwestlife]

I'm using PC DOS 2K (IBM PC-DOS 7.01 with y2k fixes). I tried the same DIR with freedos and it took OVER 80 SECONDS :-(
I was an early adopter of PC DOS 7 in 1995. I just laughed as the whole DoubleSpace fiasco ensued with MS-DOS 6.2x. PC DOS 7 comes with Stacker, which really did help me gain extra space on smaller hard drives (2.5:1 compression ratio) without any reliability problems. And it's the fastest and most memory-efficient version of DOS since 3.3, mostly because IBM finally broke away from the Microsoft code and rewrote it by themselves.

The few Microsoft-specific utilities it lacks (ScanDisk, EDIT, GWBASIC, etc.) can be easily copied over from MS-DOS. I actually use the Windows ME version of SCANDISK.EXE with PC DOS 7/2000, and it works great even on an 8088 with an old MFM drive!

[barythrin]

UPDATE: Got a 20GB drive. Formatted with 10 partitions...
Is there any way to "merge" the partitions like a RAID?

Not sure how well or what free partition altering programs are out there. Partition (tr/m)agic was the one I've used the most which now adays is nice, early versions tended to do it about as well as I would have by hand (i.e. scamble it trying)

So how does 10 (or 5) partitions work. I was under the impression that dos only accepted 4 partitions anyway although it's been a while since I've worried about that.. that could just be the physical/bootable partition max not logical though.. I guess I never tried to partition the crap out of a large drive lol.

[evildragon]

Actually it didn't. the program allowed me to format 10 partitions (i think with 1 extended and 10 logicals, don't remember), but only the first 3 actually worked.

[vwestlife]

I was under the impression that dos only accepted 4 partitions anyway although it's been a while since I've worried about that..
You can only have up to four main partitions (Primary or Extended) but each Extended partition can contain up to 24 Logical drives, only limited by the amount of available drive letters (C: through Z:).

Of course if you have multiple hard drives installed, then the number of accessible partitions is further reduced -- I suppose if you had two hard drives, each with 20 logical partitions on them, and installed them both into the same computer, many of these logical drives would get bumped past Z: and thus become inaccessible, even though they were legitimately created and still exist.

I've been stocking up on 120 GB IDE hard drives whenever I can get a good deal on one, because all my "modern" PCs are PIIIs which are limited both by hardware and software (Windows 98/ME) to a maximum of 128 GB. I put a 120 GB drive in this Windows 98SE machine I'm using right now, and FDISK was able to correctly partition the whole thing, even though it was only programmed to display a 5-digit drive size (in MBs) on the screen and the number overflows. Microsoft released a "bug-fixed" FDISK for Win98SE which was supposed to resolve this problem, but at least for me it still doesn't display the correct number, it just overflows in a different way.

[linemanduke]

when i had the big brilient idea of a win 3.1 mp3 player I ran into the fat 16 problem. luckly found easy way to fix it, i just installed 3.11 over the ms-dos 7.1 (iirc) from vetusware. it recognized my 80 gig drive and is able to use all of it. also put ontrack disk manager on it to skip the bios issue.

unfortunately i couldn't find a good enough media player for 3.1 to make my dream come true. still looking for suggestions. have a nice toshiba 400cdt here with two batterys wating for a use lol.

[rmay635703]

FAT16 has a maximum of 2GB you know.

No it doesn't.

NT would use fat16 partitions of up to 4gb some versions of 95 could do the same AKA fat 16 not 32. And I said USE not create for 95

There are also special cards that will format up to 8gb as fat16 but you run into strange issues and the drive must be used with the drive or software and cannot be put in another machine without.

Not to mention FAT 16 beyond 2gb results in MASSIVE wastes of disk space.

256kb per sector for 8gb, that just sucks!

[evildragon]

MS DOS 7.1 (which doesn't "technically" exist), has 32-bit code, and 8088's/8086's fail to boot it.

[Vlad]

FAT 16 can reach 4GB if 64k clusters are used, but this is not widely supported.

[linemanduke]

MS DOS 7.1 (which doesn't "technically" exist), has 32-bit code, and 8088's/8086's fail to boot it.

oh lol ss i keep forgetting model 25s are 808x's i tried :p

[evildragon]

not all 25's are, some are 286's, but still non of them being 386s..

[vwestlife]

not all 25's are, some are 286's, but still non of them being 386s..
There was a Model 25SX, with a 386SX-16 or -20...

http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/25sx.htm

IBM also manufactured a motherboard to upgrade an 8086 or 286 Model 25 to a 386SLC, and there were two aftermarket upgrade motherboards for the 25: the Reply PowerBoard, and the PC Enterprises Genesis. More info on all here:

http://www.walshcomptech.com/ps2/m25stuf.htm

[evildragon]

wow, that one i didn't know of..

makes me want to get the board and shove it in my 25..

but then it wouldn't be as "vintage" as it is..

[Anonymous Coward]

No good MP3 players for Windows 3.1? Really? I could have sworn there was a version of Winamp for Windows 3.1.

[linemanduke]

if you could finds one i would be thank ful all i could fiund was refference to win amp 3.1

i upgraded it to win 98 but its too slow with win 98 to decompress mp3s
im wanting to try again seeing as how my wifi card gave out i have no reason to keep it on win 98.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I guess I just don't have a very good memory. It seems that Winamp is 32-bit only application. I ran Windows 3.11 on my 200MHz system in 1997 for a while. I was pretty sure I had an MP3 player, but I can't remember anymore. Did you try this other application called "Winplay3"?

[vwestlife]

No good MP3 players for Windows 3.1? Really? I could have sworn there was a version of Winamp for Windows 3.1.
There is WinPlay3. Works great in 3.1, but very limited features (can't fast forward or rewind while playing, etc.):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winplay3

There's also MacPlay3 for older Macs:

http://www.rjamorim.com/rrw/macplay3.html

And of course, my favorite, MPXPlay for DOS!

http://mpxplay.cjb.net/

[barythrin]

I can't remember using WinAmp in 3.x but yes it was 16-bit and when they went 32-bit it slowed WAY down and sucked so for the longest time my friends and I still used v1.5 (it was I think in 1.6 or 1.7 when they went 32-bit). The only problem the older one has is with foreign/unicode characters in filenames and it doesn't support some formats of mp3. I'm sure there's a nice assembly written mp3 player out there that could maybe handle it though. I know I used to play a lot of mods, etc in 3.x with ModTracker or (maybe ScreamTracker?) but there are lots of 16-bit players out there atleast for mod, xm, and s3m, etc.

http://www.oldversion.com/program.php?n=winamp will get you the better versions of WinAmp

http://www.dcee.net/Files/Music/Player/ has some other music players (just a site I found on a google search so scan for viruses, etc I have no clue who these folks are).

[linemanduke]

well ill pull it out tonight and see what i can do with it

i think its funny that in 3.11 the hard drive size is reported as 2gb total 8gig free iirc even though there was 78 gig free


also my moms aggravated because he laptop only has a 40gig drive and the one im on now only a 60 lol so it has the biggest hard drive in the house lol