EIDE (Enhanced IDE) vs IDE
in [Hardware]
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From: Curious George on 6 Mar 2006 15:16 On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 17:32:04 GMT, Curious George <cg(a)email.net> wrote: >On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 04:31:23 GMT, "don" <bubba(a)bubba.net> wrote: > >>2 GB limit is a file system limit and can be overcome by using Fat32, NTFS, >>etc. however you would have to be using win98 or later (I am guessing you >>are anyway). > >Sorry. No cigar >http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/bioslmt.html >http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm >http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/bios/sizeMB1970.html >http://www.computeruser.com/articles/daily/8,8,1,0604,01.html > ><quote> >Note: Do not confuse this capacity barrier with the other capacity >barrier which is exactly 2 binary gigabytes. That one is a file system >issue and is unrelated to the BIOS matter we are discussing here. ></quote> and given the dates & circumstances the chances of HP or any OEM releasing an updated BIOS to address 40GB drives or >PIO mode is 0. Any way you slice it he's got a workaround to deal with. Oh and Win95 OSR2 supports FAT32. http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/fat32preinstall.mspx IIRC it came out at the end of 1996 & was more common to ship on PCs 1997. It's more likely that the computer came with the initial major Win95 release or NT3.5 or 4. NT4 came out in 1996. An upgrade to Win98 is already stretching things. And back in the day ppl Running Win95 who didn't get their paws on OSR2 but upgraded to a new 4 or 6 gig drive a year or 2 later simply filled it with 2 gig partitions. In those days that was generous. ;)
From: kony on 6 Mar 2006 17:58 On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 20:16:45 GMT, Curious George <cg(a)email.net> wrote: >On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 17:32:04 GMT, Curious George <cg(a)email.net> wrote: > >>On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 04:31:23 GMT, "don" <bubba(a)bubba.net> wrote: >> >>>2 GB limit is a file system limit and can be overcome by using Fat32, NTFS, >>>etc. however you would have to be using win98 or later (I am guessing you >>>are anyway). >> >>Sorry. No cigar >>http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/bioslmt.html >>http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm >>http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/bios/sizeMB1970.html >>http://www.computeruser.com/articles/daily/8,8,1,0604,01.html >> >><quote> >>Note: Do not confuse this capacity barrier with the other capacity >>barrier which is exactly 2 binary gigabytes. That one is a file system >>issue and is unrelated to the BIOS matter we are discussing here. >></quote> > >and given the dates & circumstances the chances of HP or any OEM >releasing an updated BIOS to address 40GB drives or >PIO mode is 0. Don't be silly. HP and the other OEMs could have easily released such a bios update a decade ago, but as with most OEM systems, it shipped with an early bios. Do you know what chipset it uses? PIO mode is not a matter of upgrade, either it supports DMA or doesn't. From the era, it's borderline- a lot of popular chipsets at the time did support ATA33. >Any way you slice it he's got a workaround to deal with. > >Oh and Win95 OSR2 supports FAT32. >http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/fat32preinstall.mspx > >IIRC it came out at the end of 1996 & was more common to ship on PCs >1997. > >It's more likely that the computer came with the initial major Win95 >release or NT3.5 or 4. NT4 came out in 1996. An upgrade to Win98 is >already stretching things. > >And back in the day ppl Running Win95 who didn't get their paws on >OSR2 but upgraded to a new 4 or 6 gig drive a year or 2 later simply >filled it with 2 gig partitions. In those days that was generous. ;) True, though he may only need a couple 2GB partitions considering all the software back then was so much smaller as well.
From: Curious George on 6 Mar 2006 19:03 On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 19:53:28 GMT, kony <spam(a)spam.com> wrote: >><quote> >>Note: Do not confuse this capacity barrier with the other capacity >>barrier which is exactly 2 binary gigabytes. That one is a file system >>issue and is unrelated to the BIOS matter we are discussing here. >></quote> > > >It's a bit premature to speculate on these things, if there >are bios updates still available the limit might be much >higher. It might be good for the OP to research this. No. It's certainly not premature to address don's ignorance of the 4,096 cylinder boundary As far as there being a BIOS update certainly there is no harm in looking. But based on firsthand experience, I'd be willing to bet that it is not premature speculation, rather a foregone conclusion. Given the date he'd be lucky to get support for 4 Gig drives. 8.4 gigs would be highly unusual. The 33.8 GB Barrier started coming up ca 1999, when the machine is slated EOL. For a 1996 era machine we should be expecting something like a Pentium Classic 120 or 133 (plus or minus) with ~16MB EDO, 4x or 8x CDROM, & a 1 or 2 gig drive. Off the top of my head I can't recall any Pentium Classic machines whose BIOS's were updated to support even 8.4 gigs. IIRC the introduction of 4-8 gig drives roughly correlated with the introduction of ATA33, so no one bothered with that kind of BIOS update. Many Pentium MMX machines could support 8.4gigs & ATA33 out of the box. Although typically even those were never updated to support 40gigs and this was a couple years later. A cursory look at support for his machine shows the current BIOS v. 1.00.02.CHOL dated 04-1999 fixed a Y2k date issue only. You can see from the revision number not much has been going on in the last 3 years. Not unusual even for Tier1 OEMs. I don't know where all this confidence is coming from in this thread, that a 1996, low end Pavillion, is going to be so dramatically upgraded via BIOS updates over so many years. At this time BIOS updates were mostly for bugfixes & very rarely if ever for upgrades. Development for a product was basically dead after a year or two. An upgrade to technology beyond that period is wishful thinking.
From: Curious George on 6 Mar 2006 19:14 On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 22:58:50 GMT, kony <spam(a)spam.com> wrote: >On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 20:16:45 GMT, Curious George ><cg(a)email.net> wrote: > >>On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 17:32:04 GMT, Curious George <cg(a)email.net> wrote: >> >>>On Mon, 06 Mar 2006 04:31:23 GMT, "don" <bubba(a)bubba.net> wrote: >>> >>>>2 GB limit is a file system limit and can be overcome by using Fat32, NTFS, >>>>etc. however you would have to be using win98 or later (I am guessing you >>>>are anyway). >>> >>>Sorry. No cigar >>>http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/bioslmt.html >>>http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/size.htm >>>http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/bios/sizeMB1970.html >>>http://www.computeruser.com/articles/daily/8,8,1,0604,01.html >>> >>><quote> >>>Note: Do not confuse this capacity barrier with the other capacity >>>barrier which is exactly 2 binary gigabytes. That one is a file system >>>issue and is unrelated to the BIOS matter we are discussing here. >>></quote> >> >>and given the dates & circumstances the chances of HP or any OEM >>releasing an updated BIOS to address 40GB drives or >PIO mode is 0. > > >Don't be silly. HP and the other OEMs could have easily >released such a bios update a decade ago, but as with most >OEM systems, it shipped with an early bios. Oh boy. I see my name has gotten you hot under the collor. You're posting feverishly now. Maybe when you read my other post you'll cool off. >Do you know what chipset it uses? >PIO mode is not a matter of upgrade, either it supports DMA >or doesn't. From the era, it's borderline- a lot of popular >chipsets at the time did support ATA33. No it's not borderline at all. ATA33 is a couple of product cycles later. ATA33 didn't exist at the time so there were no shipping chipsets that supported ATA33 in 1996 - or that were upgraded to that via BIOS update. >>Any way you slice it he's got a workaround to deal with. >> >>Oh and Win95 OSR2 supports FAT32. >>http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/fat32preinstall.mspx >> >>IIRC it came out at the end of 1996 & was more common to ship on PCs >>1997. >> >>It's more likely that the computer came with the initial major Win95 >>release or NT3.5 or 4. NT4 came out in 1996. An upgrade to Win98 is >>already stretching things. >> >>And back in the day ppl Running Win95 who didn't get their paws on >>OSR2 but upgraded to a new 4 or 6 gig drive a year or 2 later simply >>filled it with 2 gig partitions. In those days that was generous. ;) > >True, though he may only need a couple 2GB partitions >considering all the software back then was so much smaller >as well.
From: kony on 6 Mar 2006 20:28
On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 00:03:21 GMT, Curious George <cg(a)email.net> wrote: <snip> >IIRC the >introduction of 4-8 gig drives roughly correlated with the >introduction of ATA33, The typical 2GB drive was split fairly, a lot of ATA33 but plenty that weren't. Perhaps considering very early 1-2GB drives, not ATA33 yet but these drives weren't going to be appearing in the typical OEM "PC" boxes. Taking Western Digital for example, Caviar 32500 was MW DMA only but thereafter (including ~ 2GB models) ATA33. >so no one bothered with that kind of BIOS >update. Many Pentium MMX machines could support 8.4gigs & ATA33 out >of the box. Although typically even those were never updated to >support 40gigs and this was a couple years later. It wasn't two years, '97 brought Pentium 2 and the typical Intel chipset board from '97 was updated to support up to 128GB. TX chipset came prior to that, early '97 and had ATA33 for skt 7. Not all OEM boards perhaps, but then in that era OEM boards were quite likely to stray not so far from retail boards and in some cases could be tricked into accepting retail board bios if there were no other recourse. > >A cursory look at support for his machine shows the current BIOS v. >1.00.02.CHOL dated 04-1999 fixed a Y2k date issue only. You can see >from the revision number not much has been going on in the last 3 >years. Not unusual even for Tier1 OEMs. I don't know where all this >confidence is coming from in this thread, that a 1996, low end >Pavillion, is going to be so dramatically upgraded via BIOS updates >over so many years. Updated after '99, likely not, BUT that doesn't necessarily mean the capacity wasn't updated previously. Often bios details are sketchy with OEMs, capacity support increases may not be mentioned. That's not to imply it's any more or less likely, only that it isn't really to be taken for granted either way. >At this time BIOS updates were mostly for >bugfixes & very rarely if ever for upgrades. Development for a >product was basically dead after a year or two. An upgrade to >technology beyond that period is wishful thinking. That might be applicable in specific circumstances, maybe even this one, but isn't nearly a universal truth. Above example of '97 and P2 boards, did have drive capacity support updated quite significantly. Take for example Atlanta, AL440LX. Incredibly common OEM board. |