>> "I believe saying no to large disk support was the correct answer." In fact, MS-DOS 7.1 FDISK asks if you want to enable "Large Disk Support" only when it already finds that your HD is larger than 512MB. With this feature and the CORRECT setting, it will be able to support your whole harddrive. Unfortunately, you didn't allow it to support your "large" HD by saying "no" to it. This is your important problem, since I have met such conditions on my own system for some times. However, if your BIOS is way too old, then you can try JackG's method, or Petit's suggestion(i.e. setup your HD first using OnTrack DM and then install DOS 7.1), too.

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Did you create an extended partition and logical drives in the space beyond 500MB of your hard disk by DOS 7.10 FDISK?

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"The 1700mb shows up in the bios." If the bios "sees" the entire drive, answering YES to LBA (in FDISK) should cure the problem straight away without any other parameters involved.

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Now, farl, please follow the instructions: Note: This will keep your existing data on your HD. 1: Boot to MS-DOS 7.10, and run MS-DOS 7.1 FDISK; 2: When FDISK starts, answer YES to "Large Disk Support"(This will allow it to create LBA partitions and/or FAT32 drives); 3: Then create Extended Partition and Logical Drives on the unused space(beyond 512MB) of your harddrive if there isn't yet; 4: Quit FDISK and restart your computer; 5: when MS-DOS 7.10 starts again, run FORMAT to format the drives(D:, E:, etc.) you created just now if they are not formatted yet. BTW: These drives can only be seen by DOS that supports LBA drives, like MS-DOS 7.x, but not older versions like MS-DOS 6.x. That's it. If you still have problems, then you must did something wrong during the steps.

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In the Step 3, if there is already a small Extended Partition present in the first 512MB of your harddisk, delete it first and then create a new and larger one using MS-DOS 7.1 FDISK. Or you can increase the size of the existent Extended Partition directly without data loss by a third-party disk tool like PQMagic.

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Thanks all for the many suggestions but every method fails. Did not try Diskgo as it is an overlay program, the online manual is no longer available as the product has been replaced by DiskManager. A brief summary. (1)I have Partition Magic ver5,6 and 7 but they lock up on the second floppy. Pretty sure insufficient ram, computer only has 4mb. Second computer mentioned below had same problem even though it has 20mb. PQ says 32mb needed. (2)Set up HD in another computer with DOS7.10 installed in one partition of 1.6gb and on reinstalling it in the original machine get "Invalid System Disk" (3)When I said bios recognised HD as 1.6gb I think I fell for a red herring. In the AMI bios under 47 user define when the values are entered (cylinders 3309,heads 16, sectors 63, write precomp 65535, landing zone 3309)the last square is automatically calculated as 1629mb. During post in the configuration square it describes the HD as type 47 and shows no size. The Hd is a Quantum Sirocco 1700AT. (4) fdisk SAYS it is 503mb and there is no more room to create other extended or logical partitions. Have another old computer which I have just got going. Mother board SUK JUNG Electric SJ-486-3VL-SMT with AMI bios on post screen 40-0101-120193-00101111-080793-SJC491F-N and on bios chip 486DX ISA BIOS 1992 AA0834546 with a Maxtor 8175 0A4 1.75gb HD. It will only recognise a 506mb hard drive. As the bios's in both machine are 1991 and 1992, I think they are just too old. The computers were to be used in my seniors group for our training and that is why I did not want to use drive overlays as they were to be set up with a wide range of operating systems and cards. Will have to try and get someone to donate later PCI machines as these old ISA machines seem a lost cause, but good to learn early prehistoric computing. Thanks all, sure learnt a lot.

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"When I said bios recognised HD as 1.6gb I think I fell for a red herring." "During post in the configuration square it describes the HD as type 47 and shows no size." Yes, that's why DOS 7.1 FDISK fails. FDISK still relies on BIOS to work properly.

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Most PC's up to earlier 486 have a upper limit of around 512MB's and need some help in using larger harddrives. 'Large Disk Support' (aka FAT32) will support drives over this size only, and FDISK does not even ask on smaller drives at all! One point to make here however is that MS-DOS 7.10 will not give you 'Large Disk Support' unless you prepare the drive first with FDISK or use CVT.exe to convert a FAT16 drive to FAT32. A copy of CVT.exe can found on my MS-DOS Resource page at PowerLoad (Link above) http://www.oldstuff.myagora.net/powerload/notes.htm Shows you the comparisons between FAT16 & FAT32 Drives. Interesting to note that FAT32 is most effective on Drives between 2 & 8 Gigabytes!

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So this is the conclusion: 1: If BIOS has a upper limit of 512MB, like his system, then all DOS can only see 512MB of the harddrive at most; 2: If BIOS doesn't have the upper limit of 512MB, then on SOME older harddrives, like my 800MB HD on a P200MHz computer, only MS-DOS 7.x can see the whole drive(DOS6 still has problems with it) ; 3: If BIOS doesn't have the upper limit of 512MB, then on most newer harddrives, only MS-DOS 7.1(or similar) will see 2GB/8GB or more(at least up to 2048GB).

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MickC Could not find cvt.exe on http://www.oldstuff.myagora.net/powerload/msdos.htm You said "Most PC's up to earlier 486 have a upper limit of around 512MB's and need some help in using larger harddrives. 'Large Disk Support' (aka FAT32) will support drives over this size only, and FDISK does not even ask on smaller drives at all!" When I use Fdisk I get asked the question if I want large disk support and I said yes. Fdisk seems to ignore this as later on it says the drive is 504mb. You also said "One point to make here however is that MS-DOS 7.10 will not give you 'Large Disk Support' unless you prepare the drive first with FDISK or use CVT.exe to convert a FAT16 drive to FAT32" Is not this putting the cart before the horse, as fdisk has only given me a 504mb drive to work on, unless CVT.exe in the process of converting it to fat 32 somehow fdisk comes good on using it a second time after CVT.exe has finished to give the whole 1.6gb ? Wengier On using the dos7.10 boot disk accepted the following options (a)Boot with EMM386(NEOMS) (b)Cancelled CACHE and SMARTDRVE as always got message not enough memory in cache (c)Disabled LFN and also tried with it Enabled (d)Did not start Volhov then machines got to A:\> prompt where I entered fdisk. Any of the above settings effect the disk size problem, particularly any of the first 6 options one has to select initially when the first screen comes up on booting off the dos7.10 boot disk ?

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MickC Found cvt.exe at http://www.oldstuff.myagora.net/powerload/win9x.htm Is it okay to use this version ?

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Sorry. Yes that is the correct and only version of CVT.exe as originally shipped with Windows 95B (OSR2) I will add it to the MS-DOS page as soon as possible. I think you need to repair this drive on a more modern PC and FDISK it back into one Large Partition with FAT32 'Large Disk Support' as I think this will help. It seems that some older BIOS's are fooled by this but others such as some versions of AMI are not. Wish I could suggest a better solution. CVT.EXE does help in converting Large Drives from FAT16 to FAT32 in more modern machines.

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Since all the software solutions don't work here is a possible hardware solution. A BIOS Extendewr Card http://www.softwareandstuff.com/h_acc_biosupg.html Cost 4.95 + shipping I have used it to extend 8.4G limit to support 32G drive and in another smaller system which may have had a 528 limit. The card is an 8-bit ISA.

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