Andy,

Additional information for you:

If your system BIOS date is:

Prior to August, 1994, it may not support a HD larger than 528MB

Prior to February, 1996, it may not support a HD larger than 2.1GB

Prior to January, 1998, it may not support a HD larger than 8.4GB

Prior to June, 1999, it may not support a HD larger than 32GB


The only way that you are going to find a 525 MB HD is at a flea market or 
garage sale.  You should be able to get one for about $.50 at the most, and 
the seller will probably beg you to take it.

New HD's probably won't be found smaller than 20 GB.  On sale, you can get a 
new HD for less than $1.00 a GB.  I recently bought an 80 GB HD on sale (at 
OfficeMax) for less than $1.00 a GB.  Remember, you don't have to use the 
whole thing, only what you need.  You can always put one car in a two car 
garage, but you can't put two cars in a one car garage.

If you do find a 525 MB or similar HD, I would suggest that you install it as 
a second (slave) HD and partition the whole thing as an Extended DOS 
partition (this would give you over 800 MB of drive). You would have to 
create at least *one* logical drive in the Extended DOS partition, which the 
OS will automatically call, D:, and and the OS will change the drive letters 
of your other drives by one.  You will not know that you have two drives on 
your computer.  I can copy from my 840 MB drive to logical drives in my 2.1 
GB Extended DOS partition the same way as I would copy from one place on the 
840 MB drive to another place on the 840 MB drive.

You probably do have IDE on your computer as an MFM drive is limited to 20 MB 
and a RLL drive is limited to 30 MB.  There is a remote chance that you may 
have a SCSI card in your computer.  AFAIK, you cannot install an IDE drive on 
a SCSI interface.  Learn everything and exactly what you have in your 
computer so that you will not mix products intended for different interfaces.

W3.1 will require approximately 15 MB of free disk space.  Upgrading to W3.11 
(Windows for Workgroups) will require an additional 10 MB of free HD.

Good luck!  Remember to turn off the power to the computer and pull the plug 
before you stick your hands in it.

Roger Turk
Tucson, Arizona

Andy wrote:

. > *if* I can copy my -compressed using DriveSpace- 340 MB HDD, 
. > I am going to shop/look for a Maxtor, Conner, or WD 525 MB drive

. > (I only hope that my uncompressed 340 MB HDD plus all the uncompressed
. > DOS files I have added since compressing the drive plus the necessary 
. > room for Win3.11, don't exceed 525 MB)

. > (what is the necessary room for Windows 3.11?)

. > thanks everyone for all your help and pateince

. > andy

p.s. I do hope I do indeed have an IDE controller... I am basing my belief
that I have an IDE controller on the fact that I have a CD-ROM installed
and the current 340 MB HDD was itself an upgrade from the machine's
original drive(i.e.; either an ISA controller for IDE came with the
original computer or was installed later)  

p.s.s. this all may be moot if I can't copy my 'HDD compressed with 
DriveSpace' or if I can my file needs exceed 525 MB...

thanks again everyone

Reply via email to