Help with old system

blade_146 · Post by **blade_146** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 6:06 pm

A co worker asked me to put a bigger drive in his system cause his was running out of room. I didnt ask any details about itand went on an ordered him a 20 gig WD. Dumb mistake. I get the thing yesterday and its an old ass packbell 66mhz paper weigh. The hdd in it is only 540mbs. I'm assuming the bios cant address the new one cause it doesnt even see it. Checked the packbell site and the last bios for it is dated Nov. 97. Am i even going to be able to put this thing in?

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 6:10 pm

Hey, Is it a Pentium 66mhz? or a 486?? Either way, you may actually have to get a Bios Overlay to get it to read the bigger drive. Or at least I know that was the solution for my dad's old computer it was a 386SX upgraded to a 386DX 40 lol.. So you'll just have to find an overlay that can support the new Bigger HD.. Hope that helps.. GL! You may also try going to the HD manufacturer and seeing if they have a Bios Overlay for you. eGo..

Viperoni · Post by **Viperoni** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 6:40 pm

When worst comes to worst, a $5 ISA SCSI card and a couple of $10 2gig drives should do the trick

Hipnotic_Tranz · Post by **Hipnotic_Tranz** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 7:00 pm

Actually when worse comes to worst just.....oh wait it already is pretty bad. Umm, yeah sell it

You could probably get a better computer at good will

If shipping weren't so bad I'd probably <i>give</i> you an AMD K5 233 w/5gig hard drive for nothin'....

Busby · Post by **Busby** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 7:05 pm

Western Digital has a BIOS overlay utility that will make it work.....

blade_146 · Post by **blade_146** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 7:08 pm

HT that hunk'o'junk aint mine bro. Its belongs to a guy I work with. I'll look on WD's site Busby. Thanks for the info

Bigal · Post by **Bigal** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 7:19 pm

Yeah, I had an old Packard Bell (maybe the 2240 model?); it was a Pentium Pro 200 MHz machine, and I added two extra hard drives (20 GB each), two Voodoo-2 3-D accelerator cards (in SLI mode), and some more EDO RAM (80 MB). For what it was, that machine could even play Quake III fairly well. Anyway, both Maxtor and Western Digital have those bios overlay programs, and they work fine.

ShibasScotch · Post by **ShibasScotch** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 10:45 pm

ahhh the good old Socket 8 Pentium PRO -- Dont get better than that !

Bigal · Post by **Bigal** » Mon Nov 04, 2002 10:55 pm

ShibasScotch:

Going back to 1983, I still have my Osborne Executive - the follow-on machine to the original Osborne portable computer. A few months after I bought my machine, Adam Osborne folded, along with the CPM operating system. Yes, those were the days. I still have that machine, and it still works (but with an external monitor - the internal one died when I bumped the machine on a staircase walking up to see my professor in Engineering school) well enough to play some simple games, like "ladder".

Remember Wordstar?*&

blade_146 · Post by **blade_146** » Fri Nov 08, 2002 12:51 pm

well dangit i still cant get it to work. i would assume i'm doing something wrong here.

Bigal · Post by **Bigal** » Fri Nov 08, 2002 8:59 pm

Does the machine boot at all? Does the bios overlay program start up before Windows (which version - W95 or W98 SE?) gets into it's startup routine? Did you format the hard drive using the WD install program?)*

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Help with old system

Help with old system

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