Re: DIGITAL CS433 Laptop

From: Ben Myers (_at_)
Date: 06/13/04

  • Next message: Jack Pea***: "Re: DIGITAL CS433 Laptop" 
    Date: Sun, 13 Jun 2004 21:13:43 GMT

    Hans,

    The very first computers with a BIOS autodetect feature, 386 clones, had a
    limitation of 528MB, because that's all that was available at the time, and the
    BIOS designers and writers were either very dim-witted or short-sighted,
    possibly both. Then, in the mid-486 timeframe (late 1995 or early 1996),
    someone got the bright idea to up the limit to 2.1GB, because the huge 1.2GB and
    1.6GB IDE drives were on the market. Prior to BIOS autodetect feature, way back
    in the 286 days, one would be constrained to choosing from 40 to 50 (depending
    on the BIOS) different hard drive geometries, picking the closest match to the
    hard drive at hand... Ben Myers

    On Sun, 13 Jun 2004 10:39:52 +0200, "Hans Vlems" <hvlems.dotweg@zonnet.nl>
    wrote:

    >Ben, I did not realize the cs433 was that old. I checked the HP pages for
    >information on the cs433 but couldn't find anything useful.
    >My impression was (but I've led a sheltered life with VMS :-) that the disk
    >limitation was around 2 GB owing to the computation #sectors*#tracks*#heads
    >The 528 MB limit is new for me, does it have the same origin?
    >
    >Hans
    >
    ><ben_myers_spam_me_not @ charter.net (Ben Myers)> schreef in bericht
    >news:40cb0b1f.846150@news.charter.net...
    >> These older computers have serious BIOS hard disk limitations. Since the
    >> computer is a laptop, adding a card is out of the question. Native
    >support for
    >> hard drives is likely limited to 2.1GB at best, 528MB at worst. That's
    >the way
    >> the BIOSes of the era were written.
    >>
    >> If someone wants to use a larger hard drive, the only recourse is to use a
    >> special utility program from the drive manufacturer. An example is
    >Western
    >> Digital's EZ-Drive. The utility cobbles up the hard disk master boot
    >record to
    >> make the operating system believe that the BIOS actually supports the
    >larger
    >> hard drive. This all works around serious limitations in DOS/Windows.
    >Linux is
    >> much better at supporting various hard drive sizes, but needs also to
    >overcome
    >> BIOS/POST startup issues... Ben Myers
    >>
    >> On Sat, 12 Jun 2004 11:39:33 +0200, "Hans Vlems" <hvlems.dotweg@zonnet.nl>
    >> wrote:
    >>
    >> >
    >> ><Simon2319@yahoo.co.uk> schreef in bericht
    >> >news:40ca2ca3.7704452@news.connectfree.co.uk...
    >> >> Does anyone know how much hard drive space the bios in this puppy can
    >> >> address?
    >> >>
    >> >> The standard disk is 255MB, a bit too small for my needs. I am
    >> >> thinking to put in a 6GB if the bios is up to at least seeing half of
    >> >> it.
    >> >>
    >> >> Thanks in advance.
    >> >
    >> >Wouldn't it be possible to partition the disk into a smal 1GB partition
    >to
    >> >boot
    >> >rfom and let the os recognize the rest of the disk?
    >> >
    >> >
    >>
    >
    >

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