I need help! I have a branded PC - IBM PC 300PL can I use a 20gig HDD?

[Battousai1]

Hi guys! Im in need of help.. I have here 3 branded PC's (IBM PC 300PL and two IBM PC 300GL) I already tried installing the 20gig hdd, first I tried to install it as a slave drive on a 1.2gig hdd as the primary master that has a Windows 98 S.E. operating system. It worked fine Win98 detected the disk as 20gig (partitioned as two drives 10gig both) I can access my 20gig hdd with no trouble...

My problem is this.. when I tried to install my dual partitioned hdd 10gig each (20gig) hdd as primary master only and boot the startup disk and install Win98 scandisk shows a message telling me that the remaining final cluster on the drive cannot be read etc.. and whenevr I go to DOS I cant access the other partitioned drive (drive D: the other 10gig half) I can only access drive C: (10gig)

I dont know but correct me if Im wrong is it because the branded IBM PC 300PL's bios or motherboard really doesnt support 20 gig hdd? (I know it really doesnt) or is there a possible way to correct this? like find a tweaked bios on the net? but where? I already updated the bios but I cant find tweaked bios of branded PC's

btw here the specs of the IBM PC 300PL:
-Pentium 233Mhz.
-32 MB EDO RAM
-1.2 gig HDD
-10-24X CD-ROM
etc.

any help will be highly appreciated

thnx!

[BipolarBill]

Moving a hard drive from one system to another is a crapshoot. The hardware is different and Windows may crash bigtime anyway.

That said, it's likely that your PCs won't accept any more than 8-14GB drives. Normally, you load up new and format using EZ-BIOS to get around that, but you're trying to put 10 pounds of old **** in a 5 pound bag. Trouble.

The best thing to do is to transfer the drive to a 3rd-party IDE controller card from Promise, Maxtor, Highpoint or Siig.

http://search.ebay.com/search/search...&query=ultra66

[mrrobotto]

Try this site maybe some help here. http://www.firmware.com/ Good luck.

[Battousai1]

Hi! guys! I finally did the trick!!! I was able to use a 20gig HDD on a machine (IBM PC300PL and 300GL) that doesnt support large disk without having to install a Promise ATA card or installing a tweaked bios!!!

but before I tell you what I did here's the story of the HDD...


actually the disk (20gig which is partitioned to two 10gig each) I tried to install is from a PIII 550Mhz. CPU and it is a FAT32 drive... I tried to install it on an IBM PC 300PL and 300GL which both arent have the capability to handle disk larger that 8.4gig and 10gig respectively. The IBM bios doesnt show any LBA settings or any HDD settings so I cant adjust the bios setting of the drive so I think the old IBM CPU's bioses really doesnt support big drives (you cant do anything about it) so I still tried to install it and format the first 10gig partitioned of the 20gig drive and tried to redetect the drive by the CPU but still the other half cant be detected.

so what I did was...

I was surprised when I installed a 1.2gig HDD with Win98 on it on the old IBM CPU's and installed the 20gig drive as a slave drive, Win98 succesfully detected it as two partitioned drive (10gig each) and I have no problem accessing it. But when I am not in Win98 environment the other half of the drive cant be detected (for example I boot from a startup or bootable disk) I cant access the other half of the 20gig (the other partitioned half) so I assumed that whenever I am in Win98 environment I can fully access the entire 20gig drive.

Can anyone explain why a machine that doesnt support large capacity HDD with a Windows 98 O.S. installed can still detect it if you are inside Windows 98 O.S.???




Now this what happened a while ago when I was experimenting on a trick I thought of...

I told you guys that the 1.2gig primary HDD with a Win98 O.S. can detect the entire 20gig HDD (partitioned into two) inside Windows right? And I cant use the 20gig as a primary master drive cause the other partitioned drive of the 20gig HDD cant be detected by scandisk so what I did was I copied all the contents of the 1.2gig drive to the first partitioned drive of the 20gig and installed it as a primary master!

when I restarted the machine, the CPU booted using the 20gig drive (partitioned into two)

but whenever Im out of Windows I cant access the other 10gig of the partitioned drive (in DOS without Windows)...

so whats the implication of this? if your using a 20gig HDD but the machine doesnt support it but still you can access and fully use it using Windows????


hope you guys can understand my story... I kinda excited when writing this...

[eshort]

I have the same IBM computer (really an Accer-made for IBM!)..



Installed a Fujica 20gb HDD..the windows sxcandisc will work and indicates the drive at 20 gb..but..norton utilities disc doctor will not run (indicates problem with hdd configuration).

Abyways..the disc works fine: its a 7200rpm which replaced the orginal IBM 1.2gb 5200 rpm...AOL 5.0 now loads in 4 seconds instead of 11!--but--im stuck with the 8gb limit for now --

cld try a controller card--but--the card wld cost almost what the computer is worth---..the IBM is used as campground (weeklend) machine in my RV..no big deakl if its stolen/damaged...nothing "critcial" on said machine..I use it for weather and email...