🚀 go-pugleaf

In message <5hna6g$i5q@client3.news.psi.net> - os2@mistik.express.net (Mustafa
Soysal MS57) writes:
:>
:>Any takers on the other related groups?
:>
:>In article <5hn5eo$35v@news.ld.centuryinter.net>,
:> <steidl@centuryinter.net> wrote:
:>>
:>>I just purchased a couple of Maxtor's 5.1 Gig IDE drives, and am
:>>having some trouble getting them to work with OS/2.  Here's what
:>>I've tried, and the problems encountered:
:>>
:>>   - I added the drives, and set up the BIOS with the number of
:>>     cylinders and heads (9924 and 16 respectively) and then switched
:>>     it to LBA.  The BIOS adjusted them to 622 and 255, which seems to
:>>     be perfectly fine (9924*16=158784, 622*255=158610).
:>>     My BIOS mistakenly states that the drive is 888MB (instead of
:>>     4863MB), probably due to overflow.  Does anyone know if the BIOS
:>>     actually stores the drive's size?  Or is that number just
:>>     displayed for the benefit of the user?  (If it is stored, maybe
:>>     Win95 ignores it and OS/2 doesn't?)
:>>
:>>   - I tried the OS/2 v4 installation disks, got to the fdisk program,
:>>     and promptly crashed it (it died with error 3175 - GPF).
:>>
:>>   - I thought that maybe OS/2's fdisk was just having a problems
:>>     taking the whole drive at once, so I used Win95 to partition both
:>>     drives into 8 partitions each (with each partition sized beteen
:>>     500 and 1000 MB).  Note that I have not installed Win95 yet,
:>>     because first I have to get OS/2's fdisk to install Boot Manager,
:>>     and then set the Win95 partition-to-be as installable.
:>>
:>>   - I went back to OS/2's fdisk (from the installation disks again),
:>>     and this time it first tells me that I can't install OS/2 because
:>>     none of the partitions are big enough (if I remember correctly,
:>>     it said I had to have at least one 175MB partition - but of course
:>>     *all* of my partitions were greater than 500MB).  Then it took
:>>     me into fdisk.  fdisk now says that drive c: is a pri/dos
:>>     partition and that it's size is > 2 TerraBytes.  I try to delete
:>>     the partition and fdisk immediately crashes (error 3175 again).
:>>     (After fdisk crashes, it returns to the installation program, and
:>>     offers to install OS/2 onto drive A :-)
:>>
:>>   - In the config.sys on installation disk #1 I changed the
:>>     IBM1S506.ADD line to be:
:>>        BASEDEV=IBM1S506.ADD /A:0 /U:0 /LBA /U:1 /LBA
:>>     That made no difference.
:>>
:>>   - I've tried doing the above things with and without the MaxBlast
:>>     BIOS driver that comes with the drives.
:>>
:>>
:>>Help!  I really need the extra hard drive space.  I've looked through
:>>the APARs fixed in fixpack 1, and this problem isn't listed (and right
:>>now I don't even have enough hard drive space to apply the fixpack).
:>>
:>>
:>>My system:  Tangent MediaStar 5133
:>>   mother board: Tyan S1466 (intel triton chipset)
:>>   cpu: pentium 133MHz (512K L2)
:>>   bios: Award Modular BIOS v4.50PG
:>>         TYN Titan V2.1 7/25/95
:>>         Award Plug and Play BIOS extension v1.0A
:>>   OS: Warp 4 (no fixpack installed)
:>>   ram: 48MB EDO
:>>   sound card: AWE64
:>>   cd rom: Creative Labs - infra 1800
:>>   video card: STB Powergraph 64 Video
:>>   midi card: Music Quest MPU-401
:>>   tape drive: iomega ditto 250 (floppy connector)
:>>
:>>
:>>-Jeff (steidl@centuryinter.net)

There's a bug in OS2LDR and IBM1S506.ADD that means HDs with more than 128
heads after LBA translation are not mapped correctly (the head count goes
negative). The temporary solution is to code an override in CONFIG.SYS. For
the Maxtor drive in question which has real geometry of 9924 cyl/16 heads/63
sectors/track and translated geometry of 622 cyl/255 heads/63spt and is
jumpered as master on the primary IDE controller the override would look like
this

basedev=ibm1s506.add /a:0 /u:0 /geo:(9924,16,63),(622,255,63)

I'm a little concerned about the BIOS not recognising the drive correctly too
so it might be a good idea to search out an update and see if it will report
the size of the drive correctly.



Trevor Hemsley
(Trevor-Hemsley@dial.pipex.com or 75704.2477@compuserve.com)