chykey
asked on
upgrading and formating a hard disk
Hey Guys,
I had to format the hard disk and setup win98se, Since I don't have win95.
Thanks alot but I have this promble I want you guys to solve,
First one is simply ie, this system I'm formating is a Compaq and the hard disk is 512MB with 16MB RAM and I think is a 133 board (A80502133) was written on the processor. Can I UPGRADE the hrad disk and if yes what is the maximium MB or GB it can take. then the Ram and the proccesssor too, will like to know there limit. again if I want to go to setup from dos which what do i do, have tried using Ctrl,F1,Del and none is working.
Now for the big one, I have another hard disk which is giving me stress to format when I try to format it says drive C will be Lost! Proceed with format and I choose Y and it gives me A:|>.
From Fdisk after deleting my primary Dos partition and when I tried to setup up a new partiton, it stops at verifying Drive Integrity 0% - 7% and it returns to 0% again
I had to format the hard disk and setup win98se, Since I don't have win95.
Thanks alot but I have this promble I want you guys to solve,
First one is simply ie, this system I'm formating is a Compaq and the hard disk is 512MB with 16MB RAM and I think is a 133 board (A80502133) was written on the processor. Can I UPGRADE the hrad disk and if yes what is the maximium MB or GB it can take. then the Ram and the proccesssor too, will like to know there limit. again if I want to go to setup from dos which what do i do, have tried using Ctrl,F1,Del and none is working.
Now for the big one, I have another hard disk which is giving me stress to format when I try to format it says drive C will be Lost! Proceed with format and I choose Y and it gives me A:|>.
From Fdisk after deleting my primary Dos partition and when I tried to setup up a new partiton, it stops at verifying Drive Integrity 0% - 7% and it returns to 0% again
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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the bios IS stored on the hard disk so be careful when formatting. if you look inside the cover, there is usually a jumper diagram for cpu speed. if the RAM is onboard, then usually you can only install double what is onboard. compaqs are VERY proprietary and cannot be upgraded easily. The maximun hdd that the bios will understand will most likely be 2.1 gigs.
seems like alot of work for a pentium 133.
F10 should get you into the bios.
sounds like that other hdd is having issues and not workth the headache
seems like alot of work for a pentium 133.
F10 should get you into the bios.
sounds like that other hdd is having issues and not workth the headache
Old Compaqs are funny, the BIOS "Partition" is invisible to the user and often overwritten or lost. You need it for full function, i.e to actually enter the BIOS, but you can get by without it. This is good, because depending on how old your pc is you may not be able to find the softpaq to recreate it. I have a Compaq 4460es, it's about 7-8 years old. The original drive and therefore the Bios partition are long gone. It wasn't hard to figure out the max RAM or CPU for this pc. There are ways around the hardrive size limitation - Drive overlay Software available from most drive manufacturers. Maxtor calls theire "Maxblast". The software will be included with the new hard drive you purchase.
As far as booting into DOS, just download a win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com insert and reboot. As long as you don't have a bootable cd, the floppy will be the first device. The fact that you can't enter the BIOS setu suggest to me that the BIOS partition is already lost or corrupted - again not a major problem.
>>From Fdisk after deleting my primary Dos partition and when I tried to setup up a new partiton, it stops at verifying Drive Integrity 0% - 7% and it returns to 0% again...
It sounds like that the drive is probably dead, or dying...
As far as booting into DOS, just download a win98 boot disk from www.bootdisk.com insert and reboot. As long as you don't have a bootable cd, the floppy will be the first device. The fact that you can't enter the BIOS setu suggest to me that the BIOS partition is already lost or corrupted - again not a major problem.
>>From Fdisk after deleting my primary Dos partition and when I tried to setup up a new partiton, it stops at verifying Drive Integrity 0% - 7% and it returns to 0% again...
It sounds like that the drive is probably dead, or dying...
There seems to be some confusion here between the BIOS and the CMOS Setup Options.
Compaq's DO have a physical BIOS chip on the motherboard. The BIOS is a very small chip which has "instructions" stored on it. These instructions are "Read Only" (ROM) for a very good reason - they are the very core of your computer and the instructions are what everything else on the computer relates to via the processor. There ARE ways to record new instructions onto it by doing something known as "flashing" the chip by booting to a special floppy disk which runs a process at a base level in a language that only the BIOS can interpret. It wipes all the data from it, and embeds new instructions onto it. This procedure is reserved for upgrading it for very specific reasons, for instance where an old BIOS version doesn't support hard drives larger than 8.4 gigabytes and needs to be updated to allow this.
See here: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/BIOS.html
Most non-Compaq computers also have a small chip either attached to the BIOS chip, or separate from it, that relies on a small "trickle" charge from the battery on your motherboard to keep it "alive" and able to remember data on it. This is very similar to the standard memory in your PC which only stores data while the machine has power. When it is powered down, the data in memory is lost. This type of memory is called RAM (Random Access Memory) or Volatile Memory. The chip I am talking about is referred to as the CMOS chip (Complimentary Metal Oxide Semi-Conductor).
See here: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/CMOS.html
This chip stores certain "setup" information pertaining to your computer, such as the type of hard drives, the way the Printer Port is configured to work, the order that your system should look for drives when it starts, and loads of other settings.
The screen that you can access on most computers by pressing F2 (for phoenix BIOS chips) or Del (for some others) as the computer first starts, is correctly known as the CMOS Setup screen. This screen is just a way of allowing a user to change settings stored in the CMOS chip.
Now, the older Compaq machines, such as the Desktop 2000, shipped with a non-DOS partition about 5 megabytes in size at the start of the hard drive. If this is ever wiped out, it can only be created before the disk is formatted and is done by booting to special floppy disks created by downloaded files from the Compaq website.
This partition is referred to as the F10 partition or Diagnostics Partition and has installed on it a set of utilities that allow you to run diagnostic reports and change settings in the same way that the CMOS Setup screen on other computers works. It is called the F10 partition, because the user holds the F10 key to access it as the computer starts up.
Without the diagnostics partition or the utilities on it, the user has no realistic way of changing SOME settings, because there is no "Setup Screen" otherwise available. I say SOME settings because the computer will USUALLY recognise the presence of a new Hard Drive, and automatically configure it without user intervention, but other user PREFERENCES cannot be automatically configured by the computer automatically. The data on Compaq CMOS chips is less because it doesn't hold the utilities as well as the settings.
It IS possible to access the Diagnostics and Setup utilities by booting to either of the disks that can be created for this purpose, and the diagnostics partition CAN be cleaned of. This is a nuisance, and doesn't always work as it should.
I have a Compaq Deskpro 2000 in front of me that doesn't want to boot to the Setup floppy for some reason and, although it works OK, I have no way of telling the CMOS Setup to always start with the Caps Lock on and a few other tweaks, since the partition was wiped. It won't allow me to disable the onboard 1MB graphics chip and use an add-on card without conflicts, so it is stuck with 1MB of video memory which isn't a lot.
You CANNOT put the drive into a non-Compaq machine and use the floppies to create the partition and load the utilities into it. It has to be done on a Compaq either of the same type or model. Obviously it is preferable to use the one you intend to host the hard drive.
One comment I should make is that the hard drive is going to cause you problems when you install something like Microsoft Office and start saving your own files. I installed Win98SE, doing a custom installation without unnecessary junk, on a 250MB hard drive, but It wouldn't allow me to install and use Office 97. This was just an experiment, however, and you will probably be able to install it on yours. The problem will be if you try to run a few applications at once. With only 16 MB of memory, it will want to use the hard drive's temporary memory "SwapFile" as an overflow, and I don't know whether you will have this headroom on the spare capacity of the drive.
If you use FDISK to wipe the disk and then create a new active DOS partition, please reboot BEFORE then formatting it otherwise the procedure won't work.
Download this help file and run it to get an idea of how FDISK works:
http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/FDISK.HLP.zip
Good luck.
Compaq's DO have a physical BIOS chip on the motherboard. The BIOS is a very small chip which has "instructions" stored on it. These instructions are "Read Only" (ROM) for a very good reason - they are the very core of your computer and the instructions are what everything else on the computer relates to via the processor. There ARE ways to record new instructions onto it by doing something known as "flashing" the chip by booting to a special floppy disk which runs a process at a base level in a language that only the BIOS can interpret. It wipes all the data from it, and embeds new instructions onto it. This procedure is reserved for upgrading it for very specific reasons, for instance where an old BIOS version doesn't support hard drives larger than 8.4 gigabytes and needs to be updated to allow this.
See here: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/B/BIOS.html
Most non-Compaq computers also have a small chip either attached to the BIOS chip, or separate from it, that relies on a small "trickle" charge from the battery on your motherboard to keep it "alive" and able to remember data on it. This is very similar to the standard memory in your PC which only stores data while the machine has power. When it is powered down, the data in memory is lost. This type of memory is called RAM (Random Access Memory) or Volatile Memory. The chip I am talking about is referred to as the CMOS chip (Complimentary Metal Oxide Semi-Conductor).
See here: http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/C/CMOS.html
This chip stores certain "setup" information pertaining to your computer, such as the type of hard drives, the way the Printer Port is configured to work, the order that your system should look for drives when it starts, and loads of other settings.
The screen that you can access on most computers by pressing F2 (for phoenix BIOS chips) or Del (for some others) as the computer first starts, is correctly known as the CMOS Setup screen. This screen is just a way of allowing a user to change settings stored in the CMOS chip.
Now, the older Compaq machines, such as the Desktop 2000, shipped with a non-DOS partition about 5 megabytes in size at the start of the hard drive. If this is ever wiped out, it can only be created before the disk is formatted and is done by booting to special floppy disks created by downloaded files from the Compaq website.
This partition is referred to as the F10 partition or Diagnostics Partition and has installed on it a set of utilities that allow you to run diagnostic reports and change settings in the same way that the CMOS Setup screen on other computers works. It is called the F10 partition, because the user holds the F10 key to access it as the computer starts up.
Without the diagnostics partition or the utilities on it, the user has no realistic way of changing SOME settings, because there is no "Setup Screen" otherwise available. I say SOME settings because the computer will USUALLY recognise the presence of a new Hard Drive, and automatically configure it without user intervention, but other user PREFERENCES cannot be automatically configured by the computer automatically. The data on Compaq CMOS chips is less because it doesn't hold the utilities as well as the settings.
It IS possible to access the Diagnostics and Setup utilities by booting to either of the disks that can be created for this purpose, and the diagnostics partition CAN be cleaned of. This is a nuisance, and doesn't always work as it should.
I have a Compaq Deskpro 2000 in front of me that doesn't want to boot to the Setup floppy for some reason and, although it works OK, I have no way of telling the CMOS Setup to always start with the Caps Lock on and a few other tweaks, since the partition was wiped. It won't allow me to disable the onboard 1MB graphics chip and use an add-on card without conflicts, so it is stuck with 1MB of video memory which isn't a lot.
You CANNOT put the drive into a non-Compaq machine and use the floppies to create the partition and load the utilities into it. It has to be done on a Compaq either of the same type or model. Obviously it is preferable to use the one you intend to host the hard drive.
One comment I should make is that the hard drive is going to cause you problems when you install something like Microsoft Office and start saving your own files. I installed Win98SE, doing a custom installation without unnecessary junk, on a 250MB hard drive, but It wouldn't allow me to install and use Office 97. This was just an experiment, however, and you will probably be able to install it on yours. The problem will be if you try to run a few applications at once. With only 16 MB of memory, it will want to use the hard drive's temporary memory "SwapFile" as an overflow, and I don't know whether you will have this headroom on the spare capacity of the drive.
If you use FDISK to wipe the disk and then create a new active DOS partition, please reboot BEFORE then formatting it otherwise the procedure won't work.
Download this help file and run it to get an idea of how FDISK works:
http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/FDISK.HLP.zip
Good luck.
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I forgot to mention about the hard drive's maximum capacity. It depends on the Operating System and the BIOS restrictions imposed. Generally up to 2.1 GB is recognised across the board with these older Compaq's, but the ones in between that were shipped with Western Digital Hard drives came with up to 1.6 GigBytes. Most of these MAY allow up to 8.4 GB without you having to "flash" upgrade the BIOS.
It all depends on the model of the computer.
The maximum speed of the processor is dictated by a small switch on the motherboard comprising 4 separate on/off DIP switches. DON'T mess with these because you can toast the processor by trying to run it beyond what it can do. From memory, most of these 133 MHz processor models can take up to 200 MHz MMX processors by setting these switches correctly. It isn't something you can guess at, but there are motherboard manuals for most of these Compaq's available from Compaq sites or other download areas as Adobe Acrobat-readable .pdf files. These manuals show you how to set the switches correctly for each type of processor. Again, we need the model and serial No.
It all depends on the model of the computer.
The maximum speed of the processor is dictated by a small switch on the motherboard comprising 4 separate on/off DIP switches. DON'T mess with these because you can toast the processor by trying to run it beyond what it can do. From memory, most of these 133 MHz processor models can take up to 200 MHz MMX processors by setting these switches correctly. It isn't something you can guess at, but there are motherboard manuals for most of these Compaq's available from Compaq sites or other download areas as Adobe Acrobat-readable .pdf files. These manuals show you how to set the switches correctly for each type of processor. Again, we need the model and serial No.
Sorry for the multiple posts here, but I have just remembered that the CMOS Ram chip is actually a portion of the Input/Output Controller, just for info for those who doubted whether Compaq's have a BIOS or CMOS chip.
Configuration Memory (CMOS) Map on I/O Controller
Location Function
00-0Dh Real-time clock
0Eh Diagnostic status
0Fh System reset code
10h Diskette drive type
11h Reserved
12h Hard drive type
13h Security functions
14h Equipment installed
15h Base memory size, low byte/KB
16h Base memory size, high byte/KB 50h,
17h Extended memory, low byte/KB
18h Extended memory, high byte/KB
19h Hard drive 1, primary controller
1Ah Hard drive 2, primary controller
1Bh Hard drive 1, secondary controller
1Ch Hard drive 2, secondary controller
1Dh Enhanced hard drive support
1Eh Reserved
1Fh Power management functions
20h-23h Reserved
24h System board ID
25h System architecture data
26h Auxilliary peripheral configuration
27h Speed controller external drive
28h Expanded/base mem. size IRQ12
29h Miscell config 9Eh,
2Ah Hard drive timeout
2Bh System inact timeout
2Ch Monitor timeout, Num Lock Cntrl
2Dh Additional flags
2Eh-2Fh Checksum of locations
30h-31h Total extended memory tested
32h Century
33h Miscellaneous flags set by BIOS
34h International language
35h APM status flags
37h-3Fh Power-on password
40h- 42h Super Ext. Mem. Tested Good
43h Microprocessor ID
44h Microprocessor revision
45h SW SMI command byte
46h SW SMI data byte
47h APM command
4Bh SIMM information
4Ch Reserved
4Dh-4Fh POST error logging
51h Super Ext. Mem. configured
52h Miscellaneous configuration byte
53h PCI configuration byte
54h-5Bh Reserved
5Ch Mode 2 configuration byte
5Dh ESS audio configuration byte
5Eh Reserved
5Fh-6Fh Asset tag serial number
70h-74h Custom drive type 65
75h-79h Custom drive type 66
7Ah-7Eh Custom drive type 68
7Fh-83h Custom drive type 15
84h-85h Reserved
86h-96h System board PnP support
97h Auto setup test byte
98h-9Dh Reserved
9Fh Checksum of locations 50h-5Dh
A0h-A5h Manufacturing diagnostic data
A6h-BFh Reserved
C0h-DFh Client Management error log
E0h-F1h Backup serial number
10h-2Dh F2h ROM internal use
F3h-F7h Reserved
F8h-FFh Administrator password
100h-111h Chassis serial number
112h-115h BIOS boot spec (IPL order)
116h-119h BIOS boot spec (BCV order)
11Ah-8FFh PCI and ISA PnP ESCD data
Generally, the memory for the Socket 5 models can be up to 128 MB, but uses only specific memory types which are fairly rare now:
EDO 72 pin SIMM "Tin contact" 60ns
ECC memory is supported but not installed by default.
To take advantage of ECC memory the Non-parity memory must be removed and only ECC memory may be installed.
Configuration Memory (CMOS) Map on I/O Controller
Location Function
00-0Dh Real-time clock
0Eh Diagnostic status
0Fh System reset code
10h Diskette drive type
11h Reserved
12h Hard drive type
13h Security functions
14h Equipment installed
15h Base memory size, low byte/KB
16h Base memory size, high byte/KB 50h,
17h Extended memory, low byte/KB
18h Extended memory, high byte/KB
19h Hard drive 1, primary controller
1Ah Hard drive 2, primary controller
1Bh Hard drive 1, secondary controller
1Ch Hard drive 2, secondary controller
1Dh Enhanced hard drive support
1Eh Reserved
1Fh Power management functions
20h-23h Reserved
24h System board ID
25h System architecture data
26h Auxilliary peripheral configuration
27h Speed controller external drive
28h Expanded/base mem. size IRQ12
29h Miscell config 9Eh,
2Ah Hard drive timeout
2Bh System inact timeout
2Ch Monitor timeout, Num Lock Cntrl
2Dh Additional flags
2Eh-2Fh Checksum of locations
30h-31h Total extended memory tested
32h Century
33h Miscellaneous flags set by BIOS
34h International language
35h APM status flags
37h-3Fh Power-on password
40h- 42h Super Ext. Mem. Tested Good
43h Microprocessor ID
44h Microprocessor revision
45h SW SMI command byte
46h SW SMI data byte
47h APM command
4Bh SIMM information
4Ch Reserved
4Dh-4Fh POST error logging
51h Super Ext. Mem. configured
52h Miscellaneous configuration byte
53h PCI configuration byte
54h-5Bh Reserved
5Ch Mode 2 configuration byte
5Dh ESS audio configuration byte
5Eh Reserved
5Fh-6Fh Asset tag serial number
70h-74h Custom drive type 65
75h-79h Custom drive type 66
7Ah-7Eh Custom drive type 68
7Fh-83h Custom drive type 15
84h-85h Reserved
86h-96h System board PnP support
97h Auto setup test byte
98h-9Dh Reserved
9Fh Checksum of locations 50h-5Dh
A0h-A5h Manufacturing diagnostic data
A6h-BFh Reserved
C0h-DFh Client Management error log
E0h-F1h Backup serial number
10h-2Dh F2h ROM internal use
F3h-F7h Reserved
F8h-FFh Administrator password
100h-111h Chassis serial number
112h-115h BIOS boot spec (IPL order)
116h-119h BIOS boot spec (BCV order)
11Ah-8FFh PCI and ISA PnP ESCD data
Generally, the memory for the Socket 5 models can be up to 128 MB, but uses only specific memory types which are fairly rare now:
EDO 72 pin SIMM "Tin contact" 60ns
ECC memory is supported but not installed by default.
To take advantage of ECC memory the Non-parity memory must be removed and only ECC memory may be installed.
Done? (listening)
BillDL> Sorry for the multiple posts here,
Not at all. I does justice to issue of what bios is placed where, and permits one to decide better for oneself on whether this here partition is an idea worth continuing or not, and whether they should ask about it at purchase time, or not.
BillDL> Sorry for the multiple posts here,
Not at all. I does justice to issue of what bios is placed where, and permits one to decide better for oneself on whether this here partition is an idea worth continuing or not, and whether they should ask about it at purchase time, or not.
No comment has been added lately, so it's time to clean up this TA.
I will leave a recommendation in the Cleanup topic area that this question is to:
Points split between BillDL and rid
Please leave any comments here within the next seven days.
PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT THIS COMMENT AS AN ANSWER!
Paul
EE Cleanup Volunteer
I will leave a recommendation in the Cleanup topic area that this question is to:
Points split between BillDL and rid
Please leave any comments here within the next seven days.
PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT THIS COMMENT AS AN ANSWER!
Paul
EE Cleanup Volunteer
Thank you Paul and Computer101
I am not sure but if I remember it correctly this Compaq system is very funny. The motherboard does not have a bios. the Bios information is stored in the boot partition of the Hard Disk. The only way you can do anything to this system is with a Compaq System Recovery disk.
And obviously the Recovery CD will install Windows 95.