Need A "small" EZ-BIOS file

[Bubba's Dad]

Hi Again Everyone
I currently support about 300 old Digital 3000, and FX workstations running Win95 on a very large network. I have a hardware support vendor and service contracts on everything. Here is the problem The PC's came with 1.2GB drives, and no CDRoms. The old drives are failing and support is having problems getting drives smaller than the 1.2 limit. I can use larger drives with ez-bios or a similar utility. But it needs to be small enough to fit on a floppy.

Anybody know where I can download one that small. It also needs to be generic as I never know whose drives the vendor will bring me.
Thanks for the help

[GaryRouth]

Hi DEC throwback :)

[You running those oldies on Pathworks? with an old VAX/VMS on rollers in a raised floor? - - ah, the good old days]

Your vendor could probably provide you with copies, since they "ought" to come with the drives, but here are the links for the WD, Seagate, & Maxtor (I don't have the IBM link handy). The downloads all share the extra step = you have to run the download program to create the bootable floppy that installs EzBios to the client pc. Each one is able to fit on a floppy.

Western Digital's DataLifeGuard:
http://support.wdc.com/dlg/facts.asp

Maxtor's MaxBlast & MaxBlast II:
http://www.maxtor.co.jp/maxblast/
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxblast_plus_ii.htm

Seagates DiskWizard:
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/drivers/discwiz.html
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Now, of course, since we're a tech site, I've got to recommend that your vendor really ought to just supply you with some nice PCI IDE controller cards as a more elegant solution, but I also realize that the Purchasing department looks at "free download' and then the purchase orders for controller cards, and . . .

Best of luck, and Happy Holidays
. . . Gary

[Bubba's Dad]

Thanks for the URL's
Guess I will just have to make copies of each.
Actually we are going to try to keep this stuff going till we roll out the entire State in 2005. Approx 1500 PC's and about 150 servers at a pop. Really need to come up with something generic to get to 5 other operations techs because this is gonna get worse.

Thanks again

[Bubba's Dad]

Here is another twist..... If, for instance I use the MaxBlast software to "fool" the bios. What happens when I then Image the drive using ImageCast. Would the MaxBlast need to be on the Image also??

Thanks

[GaryRouth]

Not sure. I took a quick look over at Inuit software's pages for Image Cast 4.6.1 and Image Cast MFG, but their knowledge base doesn't specifically lay out compatibility with drive overlays (they do mention workarounds for Partition Magic). They do mention that they prefer to be used on new machines as part of an enterprise-wide rollout on similiar drives. In the workarounds for Partition Magic, they mention a "force sector by sector" copy, something like that might help with Ez-bios, but I rather doubt it. Inuit also mentions that they base ImageCast on FDISK, so having a different MBR program (like Ez-bios or Partition Magic) probably is a bigger headache than you need.

I'd give them a call or email - should be covered in your service contract.

The PCI IDE cards might be had for as little as $10 a machine, and would avoid the Ez-Bios/Image Cast problems. We had trouble with Imaging products for rollouts: drive geometry issues because we had so many different makes/models/generations. They worked OK when we had a batch of similiar machines. I wasn't involved with those in person, so I'm a little sketchy on the details.
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My own guess would be that maybe you could make two ImageCast images: one for the machines that use MaxBlast, and one for those that don't. It might work for MaxBlast if it will write an Ez-Bios/MaxBlast MBR.

Another approach would be if your vendor can find drives in the 10gb range, and use the size-limitation jumper that some of them had that would limit them to 8.1gb - just enough to sqeak under the Bios limits of quite a few motherboards.

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[Bubba's Dad]

Thanks for the ideas Gary....These pc's are already 6 years old, and due ti budget shortfalls the powers to be want to get 2 more years out of them. This is gonna be a hardware nightmare. I think I need to hold the hardware support vendor's feet to the fire and make them fix the problem..... There all better!

Thanks again and Merry Christmas to all the helpful posters here.