BIOS recognizes HD but won't support it.

BIOS[pic] can id the HD (Primary Master), but sees two different capacities based on the addressing method:

CHS 8,446 MB
LBA 20,020 MB (actually capacity)

"Type:" is fixed as [Auto].

HD won't boot or recognize an os.

Booting by CD (Win 98 incidentally), I get a capacity approximately matching CHS. Perhaps because this older BIOS won't recognize a HD larger than 8 MB?

Attached Thumbnails

   

hi JASlinux,

One thing to check is the jumper on the hard
drive to make sure it is in master or slave position.
Some drives had a jumper setting that would limit the usable size.
Also see if the hard drive lists the CHS numbers to manually put them in the bios.

Does Windows 98 fdisk see the 20GB or just the 8GB?

If you can boot Linux, you can see if cfdisk or gparted sees the size correctly.
You can force LBA addressing with Lilo, not sure on Grub boot loader.
On a machine that old, you will be real limited on what you can do with modern software too.

The size jumper was typically for larger drives to limit them to 32GB although there might of been a 2.1GB limit too.

The c: drive looks empty from the picture, was or is it supposed to be bootable? Were there DOS system files supposed to be on the disk? Did you format the drive but forget to copy the system files via the sys command? If you did I would have expected to see at least the command.com file. What do you mean by won't recognize an OS?

It could be a BIOS limitation but if so I would not have expected to see the LBA info. It has been a long time since I have played with a PC that old. What are the other settings besides auto?

thx michaelk,

It's been forever since I messed with a bios or hdd that old for the size jumper. A quick search on that Seagate drive shows the
CHS should be 16383 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors versus what is shown.

Thoughtful insights.

linuxdaddy:

I usually have my jumpers in the cable select position. I would expect a slave drive jumper setting might not boot, but then would BIOS even recognize it as a primary master?

I didn't check fdisk. I have since removed the drive to see if I can boot Linux as with 20 GB HD installed it won't boot anything.

I have also the original 6 GB Win98 HD which might boot, though today's goal for that machine is scanning. The printer utility requires XP or later.


michaelk: What happened is the Windows install CD offered to reformat, the process began, & at 99% an error reported the drive was not formatable without reason.

It's possible I could have partitioned off the 1st 8GB, but I do not remember or know if that would make the difference.

I meant that the BIOS does not see an OS on the drive despite one being there (XP when it was installed on a different machine).

linuxdaddy:

(Printed HD specs)
16,383 Cyl
16 HDS
63 Sect
39,102,336 LBA

Obviously in original post I meant GB.

New secondary dilemma:

The HD is nominally 20 GB.

BIOS reports a head & cylinder discrepancy but equal capacity (7.87 GB), the same reported by DOS.

I think I remember seeing the drive at full capacity which is a bit confusing.

Attached Thumbnails

   

Summarily I am just trying to boot XP, & on my alternatives list is a VirtualBox. If that can run the printer utility & connect to wi-fi on a 64-bit Linux machine, that would be a more elegant solution than fussing with clunky old hardware.

VB was going to be my next suggestion.

What type of printer, Parallel or USB? The virtual network adapter is linked to the physical device so no xp wireless driver is required.

https://www.seagate.com/support/disc...100129212b.pdf

According to this manual: 63 sectors, 16 heads, 16383 cylinders

It's a wireless that probably also connects USB. I refuse Win 10 updates so I can't connect to the Internet in it.

As XP doesn't force those updates & it's not needed for browsing, it would most efficiently do the job.

XP does not force updates because it stopped being supported in 2009 (extended in 2014)...

If you still have the printer drivers for XP I would guess it will work over wireless.

If you can find a Windows 7 driver and use VB would be good too. What printer? won't it work on Linux for scanning?

On the earlier post with CHS calculator, the sector size will be higher
than 512, like 1024,2048, 4096 etc for most hard drives and file systems.

In case you didn't notice, that manual shows the same CHS values for 20G, 40G, 60G & 80G drives. I have a 20G IBM Deskstar IC35L020AVVN07-0 here claiming 16383/16/63 on its label, and a 1T Hitachi HUA722010CLA331 here claiming 16383/16/63 on its label. 16383/16/63 is the official CHS size for all HDDs of more than ~8G that specify any CHS size. 16383/16/63 is not expected ever to match the LBA size on HDDs >~8G. 16383/16/63 is 8,455,200,768 bytes on a 512B/sector HDD. 16383/16/63 are fictions designed for use by ancient BIOS, and ignored by anything newer. SPT vary according to distance from center on HDDs made this century and for many years prior, called zone bit recording. Physical heads are usually 2 per platter, often only 1. Physical "cylinders" or "tracks" vary according to whatever the bit density on the platters produces.

I remember once upon a time with some BIOS that if values were ever selected for a particular drive, that the BIOS could not reconcile them to LBA size, and would not accept the drive to proceed with POST, until after a CMOS clear, and leaving all the HDD settings on AUTO. IOW, always leave set to AUTO, meaning CHS values untouched (blanks or zeros) for drives larger than ~8G.

Indeed I went through the manual very quickly. And a slow read today did not reveal anything useful.

I made some calculations and maybe 63x16x38792 could be close to correct value. It does give the 39102336 guaranteed sectors described in the manual. I suggest OP tries this even though I could be wrong. As far as I remember 16x63 was like a standard, or at least i remember seeing that to a few disks

Edit. https://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/...g100129216.pdf

And according to this install guide, troubleshooting, 5, "Verify that your BIOS
has autodetect and LBA mode enabled". /Edit