> Hi Mark,
>
> Do you plug in the card and that's it? Or do you plug in the card, disable
> the HHD controller and plug in the 40-wire cable to the new card? Is it a
> 8-bit, 16-bit ISA, or PCI card? Does it need a software driver to put the
> HDD to work? I ask you so many questions because it's
> the first time I hear of a card like this one.
Pretty much plug 'n play (in the normal sense, not Win sense). :-)
It's simple enough so I'll list how it works for the cards I had (well,
still have but no machine to put it in).
SIIG EIDE/LS-120 Upgrade (Super Enhancer).
8-bit card.
Comes with CD-ROM Accelerator software.
Features:
Supports LS-120 drives
Supports Fast ATA LBA mode. Directly supports drives up to 8.4GB.
Supports EIDE CD-ROM drives and other non-hard disk type devices.
Auto-detects the hard drive type (you see the drive paramaters on
screen when you boot the machine).
Manual says it requires an AT or higher machine.
Installation:
ROM address set to D400 but has jumpers to specify D000, D800, or DC00.
Uses no cables as it coexists with existing drive controller.
All it does is provide an enhanced BIOS.
There are four "configurations" depending on your drive setup.
Config 1, existing system with one or two drives less than 500MB.
Install card and check for any errors (in case there's an address
conflict).
Check the CMOS. Existing drive types can be left as is.
Reboot (if there were any changes needed in the CMOS).
Config 2, existing system w/one or two drives larger than 500MB but
already formatted as 500MB due to the DOS limitation.
Have boot disk handy with essentials.
To undo that you'll have to understandably backup the drive, run
fdisk, reformat, restore backup.
Config 3, existing system, one or two drives larger than 500MB but
formatted under Disk Manager, MaxBlas, EasyDrive, etc.
Boot disk again. Backup!!
Run Disk Manager or whatever, have it remove the partitions it made.
Fdisk, format, restore.
Note: Extras steps may be necessary to make sure Disk Manager doesn't
leave any problems. Fdisk can't apparently delete boot partition info
created by Disk Manager.
Config 4, system with new unformatted drive larger than 500MB.
Go into CMOS, set drive C: to type "1" (do the same for a D: drive).
Boot to floppy and do the normal fdisk/format routine.
Install some software.
That's it. In my case there was a Config 5. I bought a used 600MB+
drive that was already being used in a system that supported large
drives. Once I put it into my 386 with cheapie controller I noticed
the 500MB limitation. The drive already had software and OS on it.
That's when I went out and bought the card. Installed it and left
the CMOS where it was (later I changed it to drive type "1" just
because). No other steps necessary. At bootup you see the drive
types and cylinder counts that the card sees.
No more problems with not being able to do a disk scan or optimize
the drive.
Once I couldn't deal with the 16450 UARTs of the cheap controller
I went out and purchased SIIG's controller with I/O with the same
enhanced BIOS. The controller is 16-bit.
In summary it's just a matter of plugging in the card and go if
you have a new drive.
I purchased both at a local "Super Store" (Best Buy). I figure most
major computer stores should have these cards, either the BIOS card
or the full controllers. There are other brands as was stated in
the original post.
http://www.siig.com/
Places like Jameco have these enhanced IDE cards for cheap. In my
latest catalogue they have two, a 16-bit and 8-bit, both under $25.
The catalogue states only 10 left of the 8-bit cards.
These cards provide cable connectors for 2 IDE devices (or at least the
16-bit card does).
IDE, LBA card (16-bit)
Product No.: 161301
Price: $24.95
IDE, LBA card (8-bit)
Product No.: 146878
Price: $22.95
Well, since I'm at it I might as well throw in the other two cards.
If nothing else if the price is too high you can use it as a guide.
Jameco ISA Enhanced IDE Card
4 IDE devices including CD-ROMs/tapes, 2 floppy drives
Product No.: 127386
Price: $59.95
Jameco ISA Enhanced IDE I/O Controller Card
4 EIDE and 2 floppy, Two 16550 UARTs, Two (ooh!) EPP/ECP parallel ports
Product No.: 138624
Price: $59.95
Special note, for those of you with oldie RLL systems they still have
8-bit RLL controllers for $5. (^_^)
http://www.jameco.com/
1-800-831-4242
*Whew*
Hope I didn't overdo it.
Marc
P.S. If you missed Bjorn's post of 21 June (which I _just_ got around
to reading) he included a number of URLs, information, and thoughts
concerning these cards. Including some name brands to look out for.
Thanks Bjorn for all the info.
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