New Maxtor "Basic" hard drive in old AMD K-6 computer

[loninappleton]

Here's a question for old timers I guess.

I have a hand-me-down AMD K-6 computer running Windows 98SE.

The machine was set up as a server doing one task. The hard drive installed is a Western Digital 30G.

I recently got a Maxtor (packaged as "Basic") hard drive on deal
from the Office Depot. The drive is listed as a 100G.

The software called MaxBlast that came with it is version 4 which is real old. That version wouldn't recognize its own branded hard drive. I have MaxBlast 10 and got the same error. So much for Maxblast.

To find out if the drive was dead I made a clone of it using
Ghost 7 from one of my other machines. That went ok and the \drive booted with 120G.

Back on the old AMD, the drive not only will not boot, but it
is not recognized by system: The 'press F-4 to continue' past it
won't work to get to an fdiosk routine on floppy.

I'm told that these old K-6 boxes may have a 37G limit. If
that's the case, I can only use the machine until my WD 30G
dies on it.

My question is: What is the largest drive partition that can be
recognized by an AMD K-6 and a BIOS from before 1999? I have no clue how to BIOS flash this old rig.

Lastly, aside from using fdisk (I read your guide) are there any
automatic partition progs in freeware such as the one in Linux
called Parted?

[glc]

You need a PCI IDE controller card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816132004

The other option is use the cylinder limitation jumper, which will make the drive be seen as a 32gb drive.

Fdisk can handle it, but there's a bug, you have to use percentages instead of megabytes with drives larger than 64gb.

[loninappleton]

You need a PCI IDE controller card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16816132004

The other option is use the cylinder limitation jumper, which will make the drive be seen as a 32gb drive.

Fdisk can handle it, but there's a bug, you have to use percentages instead of megabytes with drives larger than 64gb.


Well at $12 the price is right-- shipping another $5 or more.

I'd like to put it on a larger order like with my next dvd burner
like a Benq 1655.

Thanks for the quick reply. This was my first post on your forum.

[glc]

*Some* of the later Socket 7 boards have bios flashes to get up to 137 gigs - do you have the brand and model of the motherboard? For now, you can certainly use the jumper and install it as a 32gb drive. Maxblast MAY let you put a bios overlay on the drive to get the full capacity, but you HAVE to use the jumper just to get it to POST and the overlays are not stable. Maxblast 4 is the latest version - where are you getting 10?

From the Maxtor KB:

Note: Award BIOS version 4.51 PG has a known 32 GB capacity limitation. Setting the Cylinder Limitation Jumper and using the MaxBlast software may not allow you to work around this limitation. Contact your system or motherboard manufacturer for a BIOS update that may resolve this issue. Another way to overcome the BIOS limitation is to install an Ultra ATA PCI card like the Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card.

1. Disconnect the drive from the computer.

2. Restart the system and enter the BIOS.

3. Set the BIOS parameters (example: Primary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Master, or Secondary Slave) to where the drive is connected from Auto-Detect to None or Not-Installed. Save the settings and exit. Power off the computer. This step will tell the BIOS that there is no device or drive attached to the port.

4. Reconnect the drive to the port that is configured as None or Not-Installed.

5. Power on and boot directly to the MaxBlast CD or floppy diskette. If you are using the MaxBlast CD-ROM select the option “Run MaxBlast Installation Software” first. The “Set Drive Size” feature is located in the “Utilities” option.

6. Choose “Utilities”, Next , “Set Hard Drive Size”, Next, (Choose drive if necessary). MaxBlast will detect the maximum capacity the system BIOS can handle and will display the “Recommended Reported LBA”. Leave the number displayed and select next.

7. Power off the system. This is critical in order for the changes to take effect to the drive. Restart system and enter the BIOS. Change the BIOS parameters from “None” to “Auto-Detect”, save settings and exit.

8. Boot to MaxBlast and run the “Set Up Your Hard Drive” option. This option will automatically install the dynamic disk overlay (DDO) which is necessary for the BIOS to recognize the full capacity of the drive and also allow you to partition and format the drive.

9. Once the drive size is set to a lower capacity for the BIOS to allow booting, MaxBlast will be able to provide full capacity.

[loninappleton]

*Some* of the later Socket 7 boards have bios flashes to get up to 137 gigs - do you have the brand and model of the motherboard? For now, you can certainly use the jumper and install it as a 32gb drive. Maxblast MAY let you put a bios overlay on the drive to get the full capacity, but you HAVE to use the jumper just to get it to POST and the overlays are not stable. Maxblast 4 is the latest version - where are you getting 10?

From the Maxtor KB:

Note: Award BIOS version 4.51 PG has a known 32 GB capacity limitation. Setting the Cylinder Limitation Jumper and using the MaxBlast software may not allow you to work around this limitation. Contact your system or motherboard manufacturer for a BIOS update that may resolve this issue. Another way to overcome the BIOS limitation is to install an Ultra ATA PCI card like the Maxtor Ultra ATA/133 PCI Adapter Card.

1. Disconnect the drive from the computer.

2. Restart the system and enter the BIOS.

3. Set the BIOS parameters (example: Primary Master, Primary Slave, Secondary Master, or Secondary Slave) to where the drive is connected from Auto-Detect to None or Not-Installed. Save the settings and exit. Power off the computer. This step will tell the BIOS that there is no device or drive attached to the port.

4. Reconnect the drive to the port that is configured as None or Not-Installed.

5. Power on and boot directly to the MaxBlast CD or floppy diskette. If you are using the MaxBlast CD-ROM select the option “Run MaxBlast Installation Software” first. The “Set Drive Size” feature is located in the “Utilities” option.

6. Choose “Utilities”, Next , “Set Hard Drive Size”, Next, (Choose drive if necessary). MaxBlast will detect the maximum capacity the system BIOS can handle and will display the “Recommended Reported LBA”. Leave the number displayed and select next.

7. Power off the system. This is critical in order for the changes to take effect to the drive. Restart system and enter the BIOS. Change the BIOS parameters from “None” to “Auto-Detect”, save settings and exit.

8. Boot to MaxBlast and run the “Set Up Your Hard Drive” option. This option will automatically install the dynamic disk overlay (DDO) which is necessary for the BIOS to recognize the full capacity of the drive and also allow you to partition and format the drive.

9. Once the drive size is set to a lower capacity for the BIOS to allow booting, MaxBlast will be able to provide full capacity.

New MaxBlast 10 or old MaxBlast supplied on cd?

Does this mean I don't have to buy that ATA board and can do all the adjustments in software?

I think I'm finally ready to accept the drive and finish the mail in rebate.

[glc]

There is no such thing as Maxblast 10 that I can find. The version on the Maxtor site is 4.

The ATA board is a much better way of doing it. A DDO can get corrupted easily.

[loninappleton]

There is no such thing as Maxblast 10 that I can find. The version on the Maxtor site is 4.

The ATA board is a much better way of doing it. A DDO can get corrupted easily.

This is so weird. On 8-19-06 I overwrote my original MaxBlast Plus
floppy because I figured it was out of date. My note to self says MaxBlast 10.

So the cd copy I got with the drive is the latest. That is good to know. The screens looked identical.


I have another question about those Rosewill boards.

My Tyan Trinity motherboard gave up on Primary IDE Master and I've been running that rig off of Primary Slave for a long time.

Would one of the Rosewill boards installed on the Tyan Trinity with Pentium 2 Slot 1 cpu give me back all my IDE channels?

[glc]

It should give you 2 channels and allow you to also use the secondary motherboard channel. Just make sure you disable the primary channel in the bios. The card will not support optical drives, just hard drives.

[loninappleton]

Well, a day of good tips.

If the Rosewill doesn't work in one rig, it should work in the
other.

With all this BIOS talk I'm wondering about one other odd thing.

This on my third machine which is a Mach speed X-caliber with
Celeron 2.93 cpu.

Over the past couple days I made 2 ghost backups of the same
drive, one on the Trinity and one on the Mach Speed.

I only do disk to disk.


The Mach Speed clone took over 7 hours. The older Trinity running the same Ghost program and virtually the same amount of data to copy took a little over 1 hour.

Does my Mach Speed Celeron machine need some sort of fix that I don't know about?

[glc]

If you do it from one drive to another on the same IDE channel, that will slow it way down - you need the 2 drives on separate cables.