CompuServe Messages

hard drives

    24-Jan-90 05:16:56
Sb: #23721-hard drives
Fm: Joe Smolinski 71131,2616
To: ronnie 72727,1505
Ronnie, I know what you're going through as I had some surprises when I installed a 72meg miniscribe in my 286-AT (Sperry). The problem with the big drives is that DOS (less than 4.1) can't handle more than 1024 cylinders and the bios has a similar problem when you try to do a low level format. I have more than 1024 cylinders and didn't have to mess around with the bios as I am using a driver made by OnTrack Computer Systems (1-800-752-1333) it might be an idea to give them a call. I think the Disk Manager Formatting software and driver is somewhere around $24 or so. I suspect getting an upgraded BIOS may be more expensive. Also the driver gets around the problem of DOS not utilizing the whole disk space. I suppose new BIOS won't hurt anything but you might want to consider this software solution as another option if you still have any trouble. –Joe