Problems installing an old 200MB HDD as a swapfile drive 2

[RoninBK]

I'm trying to put together a few useable PC's from a bunch of donated parts. I tried to slave a 200mb Seagate with a 12GB Quantum Bigfoot, to use as a swapfile.

Well, FDISK didn't like creating a partition on the Seagate, seeing as how when it tried to Verify Integrity, it would go up to about 20-30% and then restart. Figuring that the thing didn't like Large Drive support, I tried to use /fprmt to force the issue, but to no avail. My suspicion is that the drive is dead, but it will seem to work independently. And I double checked the jumper settings.

So after all that ramble, I'm wondering if there is anything I'm forgetting to get it to work.

 

[micker377]

Does the Bigfoot have "Master", "Slave", and "Master with Slave" jumpers? I've seen IBM's built that way. You could also try "Cable Select". I also have a Paladium brand drive that works only by itself. I've read that certain OEM drives, were designed to only work alone. If you really want to get brave, I have the DEBUG routine that totally - completely - removes the partition table to make it like the day it left the factory!

 

[wolluf]

have you tried the 200MB drive on the secondary master (sharing with CD if necessary)? It will have a very slow IDE interface being that old - problem may be that its sharing a connection with the faster interface of the 12GB drive.

btw - swap files should ideally go on fastest drive. I suspect you're creating problems for yourself for no good reason (I'd just leave the drive out of the machine - put it in older machine running win 3.1!)

 

[SkipCox]

I totally agree with wolluf. It'll be faster with only the bigfoot.

Skip

http://home.comcast.net/~skip9/index.html

http://scc.i8.com

 

[RoninBK]

micker - I had the Bigfoot alone on the primary IDE, and the CDROM and the 200 on the secondary. I jumpered the 200 to slave, and the CDROM to master.

However, I am interested in that DEBUG routine. I have a couple of HDD's that FDISK gets stupid over. One of which I know works; it was formerly in a Red Hat Linux machine that I want to format over, but FDISK for some reason can't delete the partitions.

wolluf - I understand what you're saying. It's just that I've only got about three or four usable chassis's and a dozen or so of the little freaking mini-drives. I hate to pitch the damn things, and I just thought that I could go somthing useful with them, besides as somewhere to set my Pepsi.

 

[satrow]

Try using Gdisk or Aefdisk instead of Fdisk with your 'difficult' drives.

Andy.

 

[RoninBK]

saltrow - Thanks for the tip, here's a star. Though in the future you might wanna include URL's for stuff like that. I found them via Google though, and it's all good.

For the record though, and for the benefit of those whop might run into this problem in the future: Gdisk is part of Norton Ghost, a co$tly program, while Aefdisk is shareware that you can find at

http://www.aefdisk.com/

 

[satrow]

Thanks RoninBK,

According to my Googling results, Gdisk is free for personal use..........I was unsure of the correct status, which is why no URL's! Gdisk is one of my faves.

Andy.

 

[YoungManRiver]

I think you stated your real problem:

"I had the Bigfoot alone on the primary IDE, and the CDROM and the 200 on the secondary. I jumpered the 200 to slave, and the CDROM to master."

HDD will always have to be master and CD-ROM slave. This is especially since you have them both on the same secondary port and the bigfoot will need to be Master also on the primary.

I did that on one I just reworked, ran fine when I changed them.

 

[micker377]

RoninBK:
Is all OK, or do you still need that debug routine?

 

[RoninBK]

satrow -

YoungManRiver - I have successfully configured machines in the past with the CDROM in Master, though not particulary this setup. When running CD intensive stuff such as games, having the CDROM in Master helps seek times.

I can try to switch them in this setup, but I fear that the whole excercise is probably moot. As answered above, it wouldn't add any benefit to the speed, and would take away from the perfomance of the system.

micker - Go ahead and post it, I haven't been able to get around to trying to Aefdisk that HDD yet. If nothing else, others may be able to use it...

 

[tviman]

There are a few things you need to take into account when cobbling parts together. First, you should never make the CD-ROM the master drive because the IDE controller will have trouble controlling the hard drive. Also, most CD-ROM drives are designed to work only as slaves, even when there is no master present.

When mixing old & new drives, always set the newer drive as the master because the newer drive can recognize and communicate with older drives but the reverse is not always true.

Lastly, always make sure that the master drive is on the end of the ribbon cable and the slave in the middle of the cable.

There's always a better way. The fun is trying to find it!

 

[micker377]

wunkunn (TechnicalUser) Jan 27, 2004
How to KILL a stubborn hard drive partition
by Vernon Frazee
When you use FDISK to partition a new hard disk, it creates a partition sector beginning at cylinder 0, head 0, sector 1. When you repartition, FDISK does NOT update this entire sector. The DEBUG script below will clear this sector on the first hard drive (hard drive "0"), allowing FDISK to completely start over. This is sometimes useful for removing Disk Manager or EZ Drive and should also remove any boot sector viruses, providing that the virus is not active in memory. (Boot from a known non-infected diskette to be sure). Although this script clears only the first physical drive, you may want to temporarily unplug any other hard drives to prevent accidental data loss.


<<<<<<< Proceed At Your Own Risk! >>>>>>>
If you are ABSOLUTELY certain there is nothing on the hard drive that you need, the following simple but extremely dangerous little DEBUG routine will obliterate the partition table on hard drive 0 . . .
no questions asked.

Boot off a floppy that has the DEBUG.EXE, FDISK.EXE, and FORMAT.COM programs on it.
Load DEBUG by typing the following at any DOS prompt:

DEBUG

(and press [Enter]). At DEBUG's hyphen prompt ("-"), type in
each of the following lines under the "What you type" column, exactly as shown, and press [Enter] at the end of each line.

(Note: The "Addresses" on the left are for reference only, do not type them in. And on line 0110, just press the [Enter] key).


Addresses What you type
--------- -------------
F 200 L1000 0
A CS:100
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,0301
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,0200
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,0001
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,0080
xxxx:010C INT 13
xxxx:010E INT 20
xxxx:0110 [Enter]
G
Q


The "G" means Go and it should give you a response something like "program terminated normally". The "Q" means Quit and will exit DEBUG and land you back at the DOS prompt.

You may still be able to access the hard drive at this point but, once you attempt to reboot off the hard drive you should get an error message similar to the following:

DRIVE NOT READY.

Insert BOOT diskette in A: and press any key when ready ...

Reboot the system off of drive A:, run FDISK to repartition, and then FORMAT each partition.
<<<<<<<<<<< Proceed At Your Own Risk! >>>>>>>>>>>
--------------------------------------------------------
Copy and print - good luck!
Thank the original people who listed this (read at top).