11 Jan
2010
11 Jan
'10
7:45 p.m.
-----Oorspronkelijk bericht-----
Van: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] Namens Chuck Guzis
Verzonden: maandag 11 januari 2010 19:47
Aan: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Onderwerp: Re: HDD settings on i386 AWARD BIOS
On 11 Jan 2010 at 2:08, Jan-Benedict Glaw wrote:
There is also the possibility to use a program like SpeedStor witch will
load it's own bios extension at boot time.
You can use it to format the drive and use a standard type 2 bios settings,
while you can use the whole disc capacity.
If you want a copy contact me off-list.
-Rik
My problem is that none of the 42 predefined HDD
types fits my HDD,
unfortunately not even the heads and sectors settings.
(Missing some
of the HDD's space due to a too small
cylinders value wouldn't be a
problem.)
What kind of hard disk and controller are you using? If it's
a standard MFM, 17 sectors per track was pretty much
standard across all drives. (25, 26 or 32 for RLL
controllers, but they have their own setup).
So you should be able to at least find *something* that will
halfway work.
Of course, if this is an IDE or SCSI drive and controller,
the controller should have its own BIOS to work in a setup
like this. If it doesn't, you need to find one unless you're
into BIOS hacking.
You can, in a pinch, select a value that's less in all dimensions.
For example, most IDE drives claim to have 63 sectors per
track, but using only 17 of those will work, even if a
substantial part of your drive will go unused.
Just don't try to low-level format an IDE drive--some drives
will actually support this and the result sometimes doesn't
turn out well.
--Chuck