New HD on win95 system

[Stoemp]

Hi,

we have a serious problem here at the firm. We have some pretty big machines that operate with the win95 OS. The computers in these machines are pretty old, but we can't replace them because they're completely built in. One of our harddisks has crashed. It's a 1.2GB Seagate. The problem is we can't find any HD that's that small. When we insert a new HD (30-40Gb), the system won't start because the HD is not supported. We can only buy these 1.2Gb HD's from the supplier that sells us the machines, and they ask 570$ (!) for a 1.2Gb Harddisk - a criminal price. Is there any other way that we can get a large HD working on these old machines. Some way to trick the Motherboard into accepting the HD?

Thanks,
Steven

 

[edfair]

The drives are no longer manufactured, so the options are running out.

I buy off ebay. They are available there regularly. There are drive resellers that have them in limited quantities. And I find them on systems that are being scrapped or off lease.

Post your location and you might get some local pointers.



Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Peahippo]

Ed's on the right track. You will have to become more conversant about used hardware. Luckily for you, $570 cost-to-beat allows you a large margin for alternatives.

eBay is a good source of used, small IDE hard disks. You can buy onesie-twosie over time and keep your systems maintained well within budget. But your infrastructure requirements may be larger; hence, you might consider bidding on a lot of hdds from some surplus house. Heck, hdd replacement prices (including your time-price) alone may indicate that it's time to replace your systems with something quite a bit more open to maintenance.

We'd love to have all the details you can give us, providing they don't reveal your business identity. Then we can advise you further.

 

[edfair]

I think you also need to look at some other potential problems.
If the system is limited to 1.2 it probably indicates that the M/B and I/O are obsolete and hard to find.
As you have found, modern stuff won't plug in and work. So stocking duplicate hardware probably would be wise.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[craig1105]

Another option would be to use a PCI bus controller card and then you could drop whatever drive you want in. You might need so software to intially map the drive though.