Hard drive size in old computer

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I have an old Pentium 133Mhz, whose hard disk has died.
I want to put a new drive in there, but before I buy one,
would like to know if there is any size limit, or otherwise,
in putting a new drive into an old computer.

 

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[This followup was posted to comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage and a copy
was sent to the cited author.]

In article <01c42f33$1a89e9e0$6bc2adcb@intel>, allanm1@ihug.co.nz says...
> I have an old Pentium 133Mhz, whose hard disk has died.
> I want to put a new drive in there, but before I buy one,
> would like to know if there is any size limit, or otherwise,
> in putting a new drive into an old computer.

It will probalby only recgonize up to 8G. But, don't worry. You can
usually use most any drive, even if it's bigger. You can just treat it
like an 8G drive, use a software overlay that loads at bootup to let you
use the full size, or an add-on card with it's own BIOS to get the full
size. Unless there is some reason why you can't use a better computer,
don't spend any more money than needed. Even a new drive is probably worth
more than the computer.

You can create your boot partition, but keep it under 8G (if you have
Win95/95a, it'll have to be 2G due to the FAT16 limit anyways.) Once
Windows is running, you can create an extended partition and create 1 or
more logical drives inside that.

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"Allan M" <allanm1@ihug.co.nz> wrote in news:01c42f33$1a89e9e0
$6bc2adcb@intel:

> I have an old Pentium 133Mhz, whose hard disk has died.
> I want to put a new drive in there, but before I buy one,
> would like to know if there is any size limit, or otherwise,
> in putting a new drive into an old computer.

There are several drive size limits, and different ways to get around them.
The first thing to establish is that this is the boot drive, at least
that's my guess from what you've posted.

Since this is the boot drive, you are limited to whatever your computer's
BIOS supports. Because its a P133, my guess is that the BIOS does not
support the int 13 function. That would limit the computer to a boot
partition of 8.4GB. You might be able to put in a larger drive, but that's
all that will be seen. This is just a guess. I have a Micron P133 and the
bios does not support int 13 for drives over 8.4GB.

From the Maxtor web site, here is a description of the 8.4GB limitation
that I think you would run into. Also you can see a list of all the other
drive size limits and how to get around them.

http://tinyurl.com/22tqq

==========================
8.4 GB limitation.
The maximum parameters at the 8.4 GB barrier are 16,383 cylinders, 16 heads
and 63 sectors for a capacity of 8.455 GB. To go beyond this boundary, a
new extended INT 13 function is needed from the BIOS as a support feature
for the drives. The BIOS listed below are all "CORE" BIOS that will support
drives larger than 8.4 GB. Even though a BIOS is dated correctly or is the
current version, it may not be able to support extended interrupt 13
because of modification done to the "CORE" of the BIOS from the motherboard
manufacturer.
===========================

There is more than one way to get around this.

http://tinyurl.com/2jt2u

Bios: you can see if there is a newer bios for your PC motherboard. Again,
I doubt you will find one. But you should check into it to be certain.

Boot overlay: some drives come with a "boot overlay" software that add bios
handlers to the boot partition. These get loaded at boot time and install
the large drive support this way. Check with the hard drive vendor.
Maxtor drives come with software to do this. Some disk management software
may not get along well with boot overlays.

Controler Card: add a disk controller card, which has it's own bios. Any
newer IDE / ATA controller card has int 13 support in the bios. The latest
cards will get around all the limits mentioned in the document. As long as
you can get your PC booting from the card instead of the onboard
controller, you would be fine. This may require some bios changes on your
PC as well, like disabling the motherboard IDE ports.

 

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"Mr. Grinch" <grinch@hatespam.yucky> wrote:
>"Allan M" <allanm1@ihug.co.nz> wrote
>
>> I have an old Pentium 133Mhz, whose hard disk has died.
>> I want to put a new drive in there, but before I buy one,
>> would like to know if there is any size limit, or otherwise,
>> in putting a new drive into an old computer.
>
>Since this is the boot drive, you are limited to whatever your computer's
>BIOS supports.

If I'm going to keep my boot disk (which is scsi if that makes a
difference), and add the >137gb IDE disk as a data disk, shouldn't I be
able to access the full big disk with appropriate Win98se software drivers
regardless of how old the bios and hardware IDE interface are?

If not, and I drop it into my old system anyway, will I be able to
partition it with a 128gb partition and put data on it, and then later
when I actually need the space connect it to a new controller/bios that
handles the full size, and still access the existing data, or will it be
scrambled by being treated as a different head/cylinder geometry?

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Walter Epp <N0SPAAMfor7gen@idiom.com> wrote in
news:dikf901mjrv89mk77sdjlb55ut9funt1e9@4ax.com:

> "Mr. Grinch" <grinch@hatespam.yucky> wrote:
>>"Allan M" <allanm1@ihug.co.nz> wrote
>>
>>> I have an old Pentium 133Mhz, whose hard disk has died.
>>> I want to put a new drive in there, but before I buy one,
>>> would like to know if there is any size limit, or otherwise,
>>> in putting a new drive into an old computer.
>>
>>Since this is the boot drive, you are limited to whatever your computer's
>>BIOS supports.
>
> If I'm going to keep my boot disk (which is scsi if that makes a
> difference), and add the >137gb IDE disk as a data disk, shouldn't I be
> able to access the full big disk with appropriate Win98se software drivers
> regardless of how old the bios and hardware IDE interface are?

Win98se uses fat32. Fat32 relies on the int 13 bios support. Your bios
won't have int 13 support. Back to square 1. To get the full amount of data
on that drive, you either need drive overlay software, or, a controller card
with int 13 support in it's bios. Another option is an OS that does not rely
on the bios int 13 support. Various linux filesystems, or ntfs.

> If not, and I drop it into my old system anyway, will I be able to
> partition it with a 128gb partition and put data on it, and then later
> when I actually need the space connect it to a new controller/bios that
> handles the full size, and still access the existing data, or will it be
> scrambled by being treated as a different head/cylinder geometry?

Sorry, haven't tried this. The existing partition table will be made for a
128/137 GB volume, and I don't know if the partition table can be changed
after the fact without blowing away existing volumes. Might be more info
regarding this at those maxtor links I listed.

 

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"Mr. Grinch" <grinch@hatespam.yucky> wrote in
news:Xns94DFEA1E71E8Dgrinchhatespamyucksh@24.71.223.159:

> Sorry, haven't tried this. The existing partition table will be made
> for a 128/137 GB volume, and I don't know if the partition table can be
> changed after the fact without blowing away existing volumes. Might be
> more info regarding this at those maxtor links I listed.

The size I gave is most likely wrong. What I should have said was that using
Fat32 / 98se, the partition table will be sized according to whatever your
bios can support. On a machine that old, I suspect it will be 8.4GB. As
long as you're using 98se, fat32, and a P133 bios, I suspect that will be the
biggest partition you can make.

Ways around it: another bios, a controller card with int13 support in bios, a
drive overlay, another OS. NTFS for 98 might work, but personally I don't
use it as it made my windows me boot partition very unstable. I dual boot ME
and 2003 so I was trying it out for that purpose, to get access to the 2003
ntfs volumes.

 

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"Walter Epp" <N0SPAAMfor7gen@idiom.com> wrote in message news:dikf901mjrv89mk77sdjlb55ut9funt1e9@4ax.com
> "Mr. Grinch" <grinch@hatespam.yucky> wrote:
> > "Allan M" <allanm1@ihug.co.nz> wrote
> >
> > > I have an old Pentium 133Mhz, whose hard disk has died.
> > > I want to put a new drive in there, but before I buy one,
> > > would like to know if there is any size limit, or otherwise,
> > > in putting a new drive into an old computer.
> >
> > Since this is the boot drive, you are limited to whatever your
> > computer's BIOS supports.
>
> If I'm going to keep my boot disk (which is scsi if that makes a
> difference), and add the >137gb IDE disk as a data disk, shouldn't I
> be able to access the full big disk with appropriate Win98se software
> drivers regardless of how old the bios and hardware IDE interface are?

Yes.
You most likely will have to partition from within the OS to see the full
drive capacity.

>
> If not, and I drop it into my old system anyway, will I be able to
> partition it with a 128gb partition and put data on it, and then later

That actually depends on whether your bios supports up to 137GB now,
which it probably won't either.

> when I actually need the space connect it to a new controller/bios that
> handles the full size, and still access the existing data, or will it be
> scrambled by being treated as a different head/cylinder geometry?

That has nothing got to do with geometry.
Geometry is only used at the very early bootstage (MBR bootcode).
In your case that isn't used at all (no boot).

Whether you can expand on the usable space depends on whether the
re-size app will recognize the actual physical free space or work with
the capacity as contained in the MBR (137GB (or whatever your current
limit is) used, no free space available).

In the latter case you may have to correct that free space by hand by
using something like PTedit or something similar.

 

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"Mr. Grinch" <grinch@hatespam.yucky> wrote in message news:Xns94DFEA1E71E8Dgrinchhatespamyucksh@24.71.223.159
> Walter Epp <N0SPAAMfor7gen@idiom.com> wrote in news:dikf901mjrv89mk77sdjlb55ut9funt1e9@4ax.com:
> > "Mr. Grinch" <grinch@hatespam.yucky> wrote:
> > > "Allan M" <allanm1@ihug.co.nz> wrote
> > >
> > > > I have an old Pentium 133Mhz, whose hard disk has died.
> > > > I want to put a new drive in there, but before I buy one,
> > > > would like to know if there is any size limit, or otherwise,
> > > > in putting a new drive into an old computer.
> > >
> > > Since this is the boot drive, you are limited to whatever your computer's
> > > BIOS supports.
> >
> > If I'm going to keep my boot disk (which is scsi if that makes a difference),
> > and add the >137gb IDE disk as a data disk, shouldn't I be able to access
> > the full big disk with appropriate Win98se software drivers
> > regardless of how old the bios and hardware IDE interface are?
>
> Win98se uses fat32. Fat32 relies on the int 13 bios support.

Nonsense.

> Your bios won't have int 13 support.

Every bios has Int13 support. Very old bioses may not have Int13ext support.

> Back to square 1.

Bull.

> To get the full amount of data on that drive, you either need drive
> overlay software, or, a controller card with int 13 support in it's bios.

Int13 extensions. And only if you need to (fully) see it in DOS or similar.

> Another option is an OS that does not rely on the bios int 13 support.

Try Windows.

> Various linux filesystems, or ntfs.

Clueless.

>
> > If not, and I drop it into my old system anyway, will I be able to
> > partition it with a 128gb partition and put data on it, and then later
> > when I actually need the space connect it to a new controller/bios that
> > handles the full size, and still access the existing data, or will it be
> > scrambled by being treated as a different head/cylinder geometry?
>
> Sorry, haven't tried this. The existing partition table will be made for a
> 128/137 GB volume, and I don't know if the partition table can be changed
> after the fact without blowing away existing volumes.

Obviously can when partition resizers are available.

> Might be more info regarding this at those maxtor links I listed.

 

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"Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote in
news:c7bgcd$201ac$4@ID-79662.news.uni-berlin.de:

>
> Clueless.

Yes, as a matter of fact you are. It should be pretty obvious from the
content of the response that I was talking about extended int 13 support for
drives over 8.4 GB. Of course all of the documentation describing this was
linked to in the previous response, which you also failed to parse. If you
can't be bothered to understand the content and context in which it's used
why bother replying in the first place?

His P133 bios won't have it. In fact it is a "very old bios". It's safe to
say that 9 years is "very old" in computer timelines.

 

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Your honors, I rest my case.

"Mr. Grinch" <grinch@hatespam.yucky> wrote in message news:Xns94E09DFEB65A0grinchhatespamyucksh@24.71.223.159...
> "Folkert Rienstra" <see_reply-to@myweb.nl> wrote in news:c7bgcd$201ac$4@ID-79662.news.uni-berlin.de:
>
> >
> > Clueless.
>
> Yes, as a matter of fact you are. It should be pretty obvious from the
> content of the response that I was talking about extended int 13 support for
> drives over 8.4 GB. Of course all of the documentation describing this was
> linked to in the previous response, which you also failed to parse. If you
> can't be bothered to understand the content and context in which it's used
> why bother replying in the first place?
>
> His P133 bios won't have it. In fact it is a "very old bios". It's safe to
> say that 9 years is "very old" in computer timelines.
>
>
>

 

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"Mr. Grinch" <grinch@hatespam.yucky> wrote:

> Yes, as a matter of fact you are. It should be pretty obvious
> from the content of the response that I was talking about
> extended int 13 support for drives over 8.4 GB. Of course all
> of the documentation describing this was linked to in the
> previous response, which you also failed to parse.

> If you
> can't be bothered to understand the content and context in
> which it's used why bother replying in the first place?


Folkert does this all the time. Don't take it personally. He is
on a mission to needle others rather than to contribute.

>
> His P133 bios won't have it. In fact it is a "very old bios".
> It's safe to say that 9 years is "very old" in computer
> timelines.
>