IDE disk size on old PC

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3 total messages Started by Jim Backus Sat, 29 Jan 2000 00:00

#4038

Author: Jim Backus
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 00:00

14 lines
1315 bytes

I was recently given a 1 GB IDE HD which was supposed to be faulty.  
As a test, I put it into an old 386 that is set up with boot manager 
to run either OS/2 or PC Dos.  The disk seems to be OK but the 
surprise is that the PC recognises it's full capacity under both PC 
Dos and OS/2.  I was expecting it to be limited to 528MB.

So what is the story about hard disk size restrictions under IDE?

Is it just a boot limitation?

--
Jim Backus  OS/2 - 32 bits without the bloat
bona fide replies to jimb(at)jita(dot)demon(dot)co(dot)uk
http://www.jita.demon.co.uk

Re: IDE disk size on old PC

#4039

Author: Mike Walsh
Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2000 00:00

24 lines
1660 bytes

The limit is of the BIOS. The only way a 386 should recognize more than
528MB is if the BIOS has been upgraded. Some BIOS's, as well as some
OS's, have a limit of around 8GB.

Jim Backus wrote:
> 
> I was recently given a 1 GB IDE HD which was supposed to be faulty.
> As a test, I put it into an old 386 that is set up with boot manager
> to run either OS/2 or PC Dos.  The disk seems to be OK but the
> surprise is that the PC recognises it's full capacity under both PC
> Dos and OS/2.  I was expecting it to be limited to 528MB.
> 
> So what is the story about hard disk size restrictions under IDE?
> 
> Is it just a boot limitation?
> 
> --
> Jim Backus  OS/2 - 32 bits without the bloat
> bona fide replies to jimb(at)jita(dot)demon(dot)co(dot)uk
> http://www.jita.demon.co.uk

-- 
                   Mike Walsh
            Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, U.S.A.

Re: IDE disk size on old PC

#4040

Author: Mike Tomlinson
Date: Sun, 30 Jan 2000 00:00

17 lines
1287 bytes

In article <vdCZ2p92dNiH-pn2-z5MiOd2DdjB1@localhost>, Jim Backus
<JHB@jita.nospam.demon.co.uk> writes

>The disk seems to be OK but the 
>surprise is that the PC recognises it's full capacity under both PC 
>Dos and OS/2.  I was expecting it to be limited to 528MB.

If you've tested it on the 386 with a pre-existing partition, it will
appear to work, but as soon as anything writes to cylinder 1024, it will
'wrap around' to cylinder 0 and bang, bye-bye data.

>So what is the story about hard disk size restrictions under IDE?

http://come.to/eide/

-- 
Mike Tomlinson

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