To: opendos AT delorie DOT com
Date: Sat, 18 Mar 2000 15:38:37 -0800
Subject: Re: DRIVE
Message-ID: <20000318.153838.-4075673.0.domanspc@juno.com>
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From: Robert W Moss <domanspc AT juno DOT com>
Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com

Christopher, I hope I understand what you are trying to do.

You have to have an active partition on the new disk.  
If it was not previously partitioned and formatted with 
system software then you can not boot with it.  Normally
what you have described is the result of having a bare
disk and you have to boot with the floppy, start fdisk, 
partition the drive, set the active partition, format the drive 
with /s option. Then you can boot with the drive.  With 
some DOS setup disks, when you boot with the floppy 
it detects the hard drive and advises you that is not a 
formatted drive, then asks if you want to set up  the drive 
and install the DOS files.  Then it automatically runs fdisk 
and formats it and runs the DOS setup for you.  If the drive 
is larger than 2.5 GB some of the older BIOS won't  let you
use it unless you partition it to a smaller partition .
 The BIOS is not on the drive but is in a CMOS chip on the
motherboard.  You have to hit the (normally) del key when 
the computer is first booting so you can enter 'setup' and
set the correct parameters for the drive, i.e. 
(LBA) 1023CYL, 64 HD, 63 SPT  for a Seagate ST32132A.
If this is not set first you will get a message on screen saying 
to insert a boot disk.  You must set the drive information before 
you can partition the drive.

If the drive was previously installed with DOS/Windows, 
then you set the drive in the setup screen and it should 
run properly.  ""The computer must know what drive you 
have installed before it will recognize it""

Good Luck'
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Bob 'DOMAN' Moss 
*"Remember, if you don't have chocolate*
* you don't have food"!!!!.............*
========================================
On Sat, 18 Mar 2000 19:47:20 +0100 "Christoph Fuchs"
<christoph DOT fuchs AT surfway DOT de> writes:
> Hi there!
> I wanted to install a new drive (Maxtor harddrive) in a pc which 
> doesn't
> work.
> I un-installed the old drive and put the new one into the computer. 
> When I
> restarted the computer, all lights at the tower flashed and nothing 
> more
> happend.
> The computer boots only when I install the old drive as master. I 
> looked if
> there is any kind of bios (e.g. compaq) on the drive, but there 
> wasn't. I
> think, I installed it right, but why does the machine only boot with 
> a
> diskette? I wrote a new MBR, but it didn't help.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> MAD
> ------
> visit http://www.madstuff.tsx.org
> and http://www.docdos.cjb.net
> 
> 

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