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Cobrag0318

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Apr 23, 2012
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10,510
I have a very old Compaq that is still useful as a local file and mail server, due to its limited power usage. I recently changed one of the drives in it causing the bios to re-detect, incorrectly I might add, and now I can't access any of my drives. It is one of those Compaqs that require a setup partition or boot disk to set the bios. It appears my disk set have died, but I have downloaded the softpaq exe file. It writes an image directly to disk, but it keeps erroring out saying "file write error". I need to know why it's doing this, or at least how to extract the contents of the softpaq another way.
 
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Stumbled upon some good luck. I realized that the data in my /boot partition is likely smaller than the BIOS's currently (incorrectly) detected drive size, though the partition itself is bigger. I figured I could boot off my linux CD and re-size it to fit. Then I'd be able to boot again since Linux throws out the BIOS's detected geometry and detects for itself (hence the lack of need for a DDO in linux) "I reject your reality and substitute my own". But I still had a hurtle. The computer doesn't support CD-boot. So I put in my disk to cheat it into a cd-boot, "Smart BootManager", as I've done before. I realized that in it's menu, it showed the hard drive in question, and at it's true size. So I selected it to boot from that, and it worked! The server is running!

Well, since I'm up and running, I can go in and re-size that partition. And if not, I can always boot from that floppy. LoL
 
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that is the quote
from Mythbusters and Adam Savage
at least that is where I have heard it used
 
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Yeah, that'd be where I got it from.

So in morbid interest, as well as furthering it's role as file server, I decided to try to shoehorn my 1TB drive into it. Now, I know there's no hope in hell for BIOS to understand it, but as mentioned before linux doesn't care what the BIOS thinks. Hell, this thing suffers from the 2GB barrier. The primary drive, discussed earlier, is an 8GB drive, which as you recall wasn't detected right by BIOS.

Well, Linux detects it as a 65MB hard drive. So the difference may be too much for even linux to compensate for. And as far as I can tell, there is no way to force linux accept manually entered geometry. Or at least not without major hassles. Though I do know my 320GB drive works on it. The 1TB drive is merely for shits and grins, just to see if I could. LoL

I'm not sure if I mentioned the original specs. As purchased in '94.
Compaq Presario 850
486DX2/50
4MB ram
270MB PATA hard drive
No CD drive, No Sound card (though both were purchased aftermarket with the system)
No NIC, 9600bps modem
Cirrus Logic 1MB dedicated video VLB

Current Stats
Pentium Overdrive 83 (for the 586 instruction set, cost $10)
64MB ram (free, from being a packrat. Maxed out)
8GB PATA Hard Drive (free, again, because I'm a packrat)
16x SCSI CD-RW drive, and a 4x SCSI CD-rom caddy drive (again, both free. Only have 1 PATA channel)
No-sound as not needed for a file server.
Intel etherexpress pro 10, No dial up modem

Incidentally, it hosts video files across the LAN to my blu-ray player just fine.
 
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Yeah, splurged with the CPU. Was $5+$5 shipping. LoL I actually had a 5k86 133, really an enhanced 486 DX5 I beleive. But it lacked the 5th gen instruction set required to run 586 packages and kernel.

It's actually running Fedora Core 3. 2.6.and.some.change-kernel. No GUI. Actually the gui installed and worked for a couple of boots, then something changed, and it broke. Not needed, so I uninstalled it.

It currently serves DNS, HTTP, FTP, SMTP, SMB. And the only apparent lag comes in when my windows 7 computer browses the shared folders, and it likes to load all of those thumbnails at once. LoL
 
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sounds like your tech level is way above mine
I ran a small computer repair business for four years
worked as a PC tech briefly for a company until they promoted me to the front office
so now I work for a HP channel partner configuring servers,workstations,desktops and network printers and writing sales quotes.
I miss the hands on of working on towers
now I sit at a desk (good size at least) with a dual monitor display in a cubicle
sometimes is easier to communicate with the other people in office by email even though they are 5 ft away
dont get me wrong
they are paying for my certifications
so now I am HP certified on workstations and laserjet printing solutions and going for my Enterprise Server and Storage cert
and I am very happy to be working but my real passion is fixing a broken computer
something about making something work that otherwise would be garbage that makes me feel fulfilled
the best way to recycle IMHO
 
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Yeah, I'm afraid some something like that. Where you become so successful you completely blow past where you want to be and end up as a desk jockey, and not in the fun with a hot secretary way. You want a problem to fix? Figure out what is different between the 320GB drive and the 1TB drive, to linux in this application.

The BIOS can't handle either, and I beleive the 2.6 kernel has equal capability to handle both. Now the 1TB drive is SATA, with a SATA to PATA adaptor, whereas the 320 GB drive is natively PATA. However, I have tried the adaptor on another 320GB SATA drive with no issues.

So it shouldn't be the BIOS because both are equally out of it's league. It shouldn't be linux, because it supports both equally. It shouldn't be the adaptor because I've tested it using another drive, and works fine. And, BTW, it's not the drive as it works in my other system.
 
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Interface size limitations

The first drive interface used 22-bit addressing mode which resulted in a maximum drive capacity of 2 GByte. Later the first formalized ATA specification used a 28-bit addressing mode, allowing for the addressing of 228 268 435 456 sectors (blocks) of 512 bytes each, resulting in a maximum capacity of 128 GiB (137 GB).[18]

ATA-6 introduced 48-bit addressing, increasing the limit to 128 PiB (144 PB). As a consequence, any ATA drive of capacity larger than about 137 GB must be an ATA-6 or later drive. Connecting such a drive to a host with an ATA-5 or earlier interface will limit the usable capacity to the maximum of the interface.

Some operating systems, including Windows XP pre-SP 1, and Windows 2000 pre-SP 3, disable 48-bit LBA by default, requiring the user to take extra steps to use the entire capacity of an ATA drive larger than about 137 gigabytes.[19] Older operating systems, such as Windows 98, do not support 48-bit LBA at all. However, members of a third-party group (MSFN) have modified the Windows 98 disk drivers to add unofficial support for 48-bit LBA to Windows 98 and Windows ME


source- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_ATA#x86_BIOS_size_limitations
 
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The point I was trying to make is that I'm surprised if such a thing exists as a 1Tb PATA disk. I've run a quick search and can't actually find one. I doubt it's the answer to the problem here but it may have a reduced capacity by being connected through a converter cable.


 
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It sounds like the hardware on the computer is ata-5ish, if it isn't true ata-5. The bios def doesn't support the int13h extension. It can see 513MB drives, and 2 GB, but does not support anything beyond that, which is a limitation of software, whether programs, drivers, firmware, etc. And can be worked around with software. So I didn't really think about the hardware itself being unable to physically address that size.

Maybe, if I can get a (more) recent ISA IDE controller for free, or like maybe $5. One with LBA support probably is ATA-6, even if it's onboard bios might be limited to 137GB. Linux could fill in the rest.

Odd, technically, what we refer to as IDE is actually EIDE. and ISA is actually EISA. As the original versions of both would likely not even entertain what we talk about. An 8-bit only ISA slot wouldn't even understand a promise EIDE controller.
 
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