New HD for 7year old PC

MylesBetter

My HD has gone on my machine. Being an MSE I want to keep it and just replace the HD.

My machine is a 1.2Gb HD, 64Mb RAM, 1.66Mhz processor, so really old but it does the job.

Can anyone advise as the best place to purchase a new HD from.

What is the maximum size HD a machine of this age is designed to take?

hollie.weimeraner

If you're using DOS 6.22 max HDD size is 2.1GB. Computer fairs are a good place for small capacity hdd's.

NellyLock

you *should* be able to buy anysize hard drive, extra hardware may be required if you decide to go very large and for some hard drives software can do the job (partition drive etc) have a look at ebuyer/dabs/novatech for prices, unfortunately the smaller the drive the more expensive it seems in comparison but thats the way the cookie crumbles

NellyLock

hollie.weimeraner wrote:

If you're using DOS 6.22 max HDD size is 2.1GB. Computer fairs are a good place for small capacity hdd's.

i take that back then

my mistake

joshm_2

I'm not an expert but I ran into this problem when I upgarded my disk on a Pentium II Windows 98 system (which I was surprised by). I may be overcomplicating the issue but...

I think there can be several bottlenecks -

Firstly, what kind of file system are you running (_not_ operating system, that's something different). If you're not sure tell us what Operating System you are running and maybe an educated guess can be made. Anything after a later edition of Windows 95 should have you running FAT32 or NTFS which are capable of addressing large disk sizes. FAT16 (DOS and early Win 95) can address a max of 2048MB.

Then there in the BIOS bottleneck. I'm not sure how you would tell if your BIOS was up to supporting a large disk, but maybe someone can lend a hand..?

JoshM

blinky

If we know what the board is we might be able to tell you what can be done.

Look here and download CPU-Z
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=23949

Although you can run overlay software to overcome any BIOS restrictions it does cause an additional load on the CPU.

I think your processor will be a 166MHz not 1.66MHz

To be honest, there are too many bottlenecks on the Pentium 1 machines. (Slow RAM, slow L2 cache, possibly no UDMA).

Remember you computer is only as fast as the slowest bit.

sonic_heroes

Hi

I have a old p2 266 running win 98 running on a qdi legend 3 board and got a 30gb hard drive and installed it fine with no problems

I then later got a 40 gb and it wont work properly
I think it wont see past 32gb

My advice would be to find out the motherboard make and model and check out the website for info and see how it goes

You could but one off of ebay or a computer fair

Tony_H_3

MylesBetter wrote:

My HD has gone on my machine. Being an MSE I want to keep it and just replace the HD.

My machine is a 1.2Gb HD, 64Mb RAM, 1.66Mhz processor, so really old but it does the job.

Can anyone advise as the best place to purchase a new HD from.

What is the maximum size HD a machine of this age is designed to take?

Exactly what job is this machine doing? 7 years ago were when we were in the realms of the SX & DX machines. With any luck your motherboard had a maths co processor on it, just like a turbo charger!! Oh those were the day's, Dos 6.22, Windows 3.10 & MS Office 4 (on a shed load of floppies.... ) A standard DX 40 with co-pro would take 1 minute & 17 seconds to load MS Excel!! :eek: Using careful configurations of the startup files Autoexec.bat, Config.sys & runing Dos utilities such as memmaker, ramdisk etc I was able to get Excel loaded in a meagre 6 seconds. I was the shining STAR of our training dept!!

A true money saver would realise that you have to speculate to accumulate!! It might just be time to send this wonder to the PC heaven in the sky!!

Tony_H_3

I was day dreaming alittle there..... Your machine is actually a 486 & it's clock speed is 166mhz admittedly slightly more capable than its predecessors, but non the less it would still be advisable to replace it!!

blinky

7 years old
2004/5 -7 = 1997/98. Which would put it around the time of the Socket 7 Pentium / Pentium MMX rather than a 486. Hence, why 166MHz seems more realistic to me. The RAM and HD specs would also be more in line with a Pentium system than a 486.

The slowest 486 was the 486SX-25 which ran at 25MHz and didn't have an FPU (SX=no FPU, DX=FPU).

I would agree that it's not worth spending money on such an old system. If money is very tight I wonder if anyone has any spare bits which might help the original poster out?

Joe_Bloggs

Scrounging might be the cheapest option. The cost of postage is the biggest concern for purchasers of low value PC components. Look in local papers for pre 'skip job' systems. Pester local PC shops for hard drives they have 'pulled'. Budget for a newer PC as something else may go wrong in such an ancient system.
J_B.