On 19 Jun 99, Marc D. Williams wrote :
> These types of cards do work pretty good. The 386 I had used a cheapie
> controller and when I added a 600MB hard drive I had nothing but
> trouble, especially with utilities like Norton Disk Doctor (anything
> above the DOS limit was seen as bad). I picked up SIIG's EIDE Upgrade
> Enhancer Board which fixed the problem and I was able to use the whole
> drive. I later replaced it with another SIIG controller with better
> I/O. The limit of both cards was 8.4GB.
Marc,
Thank you for your input, much appreciated. And thank you also for
putting up and maintaining your web site
<http://www.agate.net/~tvdog/internet.htm> - its a real gold mine!!!
About my current machine which triggered my search for more information
about this: I got my hands on a DELL Optiplex 466/LV recently - a
486DX2-66 w/ 16 MB Ram and a single 170MB WD IDE disk. First
thing I did was to check out Dells web/ftp site to see if they offered a
Bios upgrade for it. And they did! But unfortunately the upgrade did
not add support for large hard drives:(. It *only* added y2k support
and some additional support for EPP (Enhanced Parallel port). Very nice
in it self of course... particularly considering I could download and
apply the upgrade for free :) But.. this was what got me interested -
wanting to investigate if and how I could add one of those new
Gigabytes drives to this machine - given the fact there is no Bios
upgrade (flash) w/ such disk support available (not that I have any
such large disks at hand or need one just yet, but I guess I will
sooner or later).
Your information put me on the right track as far as further
investigation goes. Among other things it made me remember a source
for information I should have consulted in the first place. I'm
referring to the Enhanced IDE/Fast-ATA/ATA-2 FAQ - which IMHO is a
valuable source for information on this subject and anything related
to IDE disks.
On the web: <http://come.to/eide> (also as zipped plain text
version for download)
Or FTP:
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/comp/answers/pc-hardwa
re-faq/enhanced-IDE/part1.gz>
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-hierarchy/comp/answers/pc-hardwa
re-faq/enhanced-IDE/part2.gz>
Among other thing the FAQ lists the basic options faced when trying
to overcoming the 528/504 MB barrier: From Bios replacements or flash
Bios upgrades, to add-on cards with onboard Bios that supports large
drives, and not to forget the pure software solution (disk managers,
like Ontracks Disk Manager, or EZ drive from MicroHouse or
Maxblast from Maxtor).
> Using boards or controllers with enhanced BIOSes is, IMO, much
> better than dealing with disk managers which may not always be
> compatible with certain software/utilities. --
Guess you are right. The ATA FAQ mention this problem as well,
and it goes on to say
<QUOTE>
Moreover, such software tends to create partitions quite different
from 'standard' translation schemes as used by most Enhanced BIOSes.
Many device drivers dealing with the disk will fail even if they work
fine with other schemes. Important examples are (E)IDE interface
drivers; remember that without these drivers an interface will in
general be much slower. You'll need drivers that are specifically
aware of the translation software you use. Also, many operating
systems other than DOS will not be able to access or use the drive, at
least not 'out of the box'. Disk fixing utilities may fail to work if
the partition table or the overlay is damaged.
This also makes it difficult to upgrade to a BIOS based solution.
OnTrack Disk Manager version 7 includes a migration utility for the
purpose and improves on version 6 in a number of other ways. [...]
<UNQUOTE>
Among the alternatives mentioned in the FAQis in fact also the
LBA PRO card I inquired about, as well as the SIIG card(s) you
mentioned (IDE enhancer). The LBA PRO card is by the way manufactured
by Storage Technologies, while Unicorn, which I mentioned in my post,
is the company that sells this card in the US (see PS and URL at end)
Btw I have yet to find a dealer here that sells the LBA PRO card, so I
don't know what it cost. But as both you and the ATA FAQ have indicated
- alternatives do exist - among them several other add-on cards w/
onboard Bios.You mentioned SIIG. The ATA FAQ also mentions AMI's
AMIDisk Extender and another card made by Data Technology (DTC). Add to
these, I just found a local dealer that sells some cards by Promise
which promise <grin> much of the same functionally.
Anyway, it seems to me, once I have figured out what my hardware can
accept (like can the onboard IDE controller be bypassed?) - it all
boils down to a question of getting my moneys worth: In other words- is
the upgrade worth it? And this is of course in the end a subjective
question :). In my case, I have no urgent need for the upgrade... but
I'm still investigating the options - just in case, as well as for the
sake of learning.
The *problem* could, as I see it, be stated as follows:
If I add up the cost of a EIDE card and a new HD (gigabyte sized),
I find that if I instead use the same amount of money buying second
hand equipment, I could probably get a low end Pentium (P-75,
P-100) with a fairly large disk (=/>500), and with the needed EIDE
controller and Bios support in place. Now I only say this for the
comparison, not because I need a Pentium, which I don't (not currently
anyway). I guess this is just how we (people in general) think when
shopping for parts (or maybe the opposite is more often the truth?).
The same comparison can be done for instance if comparing building your
own system from scratch with buying a new system off the shelf. The
question is - is it worth it - building your own - when the
pre-assembled ones are much cheaper. At least the way prices
are going over here. So back to the issue at hand: I'm not so sure it
is worth while doing the upgrade.
On the other hand (thinking out load here) - buying a EIDE controller
w/onboard Bios for large disks, I could maybe reuse the card
later - if - or rather when - my current PC dies. And this sure beats
buying a Bios upgrade that only applies to the individual machine, even
if a flash upgrade probably would cost me a little less than a card.
But then again (sigh:), as the world turns, the next *survpc project*
(or second hand PC if you like) in line for me might very well be all
PCI, and what good will the otherwise useful ISA card(s) do me then?
(hmm... you can't use ISA cards in PCI slots - can you?)
I guess I'll keep my eyes open and keep investigation the options.
If anyone knows I place I can go search for reviews of various such
cards - and/or solutions along these lines, or knows a place that keeps
track of and lists the most common cards on the market, then please
share.
Also, if any of the listmembers here are familiar with the DELL
Optiplex 466/LV - and/or have some information about/experience with/
it they'd like to share - please do..:)
All the best,
Bjorn
**PS: Regarding the LBA PRO card, I found a FAQ about it at the
Unicorn site <http://www.unicore.com/lbafaq.html> - which I
unfortunately missed first time around. Interesting reading, with among
other things some interesting observations on how WIN95 FDISK causes
problems - and how to fix them, also shows how to remove unwanted disk
managers using debug.
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