MS-DOS is the limiting factor here. If the BIOS recognized the full hard disk capacity (like might have been suggested), the BIOS is not at fault- maybe just the settings. Like BOC says, DOS can't use cyls beyond 1023, whether the BIOS on the mainboard can at this point is irrelevant. It seems Fred6008 isn't clear on this point- and in all fairness neither is anybody else. Windows 98 won't solve your problem neither will flashing your BIOS chip; this is a DOS problem, stricly speaking. Many other OSes (e.g. Linux) query the drive contoller to get the geometry, bypassing BIOS altogether. So if you plan on using only DOS then upgrading your system won't make any difference. Save yourself the hassle.

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MS-DOS 6x can and will support a 2.1GB Drive. The 2.1 GB Barrior Limits Systems operating under DOS becouse it uses a file structure known as FAT. The set unit of Cluster in use in DOS 6x or Windows95 is limited to 216. Cluster supports up to 32K and the barrier that it causes.

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I am not even going to try to explan Harddrive, Bios, OS limits here. So goto: http://www.maxtor.com/technology/whitepapers/63001.html And read maxtor's whitepaper on the subject, plus posible answers to your problem! All I will say is that DOS 6.22 supports drives upto 8.4 GB. With a partition limit of 2.1GB! How - Read the whitepaper!!!

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Well Tech Guy, That whitepaper just about says it all! I hope Tommy gets some help from it. Please tell us how you get on, Tommy?

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Tommy only please: When you go into BIOS setup- I'll assume you already know or can find out how this is done- usually by pressing DEL at system boot, get into the Standard CMOS Setup (or whatever) menu and look at how the hard disk has been detected/setup in BIOS. If you see something like NORMAL in the right or next-to-right column, change this to LBA. I use Page Up/Page Down to cycle through options but yours might be different: You should now see the number of visible cylinders has changed to 1024 or below, and the number of heads accordingly. Get back to the main menu and select the _Save and Exit_ option, say Y if prompted, wait for the system to reboot, and now re-partition and reformat. You will lose everything on your disk, but DOS should be able to "see" more of it now. If this doesn't solve the problem then you might think about upgrading your BIOS, but I don't suspect this is the problem. 504 is a number that comes up because MS-DOS currently addresses 1024 cylinders (minus one cylinder to be marked as a reserved) of 16 tracks of 63 512- byte sectors each, even though your BIOS shows more (This is common in CHS (also called "Normal") hard disk setups and changing the way the BIOS addresses the disk to LBA was the simple solution for me. It is also the most common method of setting up a modern hard disk.

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Yep sez all that as well, but thanks BOC for spelling it out, I only hope Tommy's BIOS has LBA support to start with!

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Thanks guys, the overlay was the solution. Got the overlay from the disk manufacturer. My BIOS doesn't support LBA. Nevertheless can access now 10GB anyway in 2GB chunks under dos 6.0. Don't even have to jumper down the disk to 2GB. :-) Tom

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Thanks for coming back to us Tom :-) I glad to see you got what you needed, A hardware fix to overcome the BIOS limit, Not a DOS limit as stated by some! I have used overlay's in the past with great success! I like to see feedback as to if our advice was of help. ANON

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Is someone saying that MSDOS can access cylinder 1024 and beyond? If it can than please let me know anon, and I'll upgrade my ROM BIOS :)

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Try reading Response Number 9 and accessing the whitepaper BOC. I did! LOL even Tom has worked it out!

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Try reading Response Number 9 and accessing the whitepaper BOC. I did! LOL even Tom has worked it out! thanx

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I have read the document in question, and it only bolsters what I had to say about DOS 6.2: It simply can't recognize cylinders 1024+ due to the way interrrupt 13 stores drive paramaters. Stating it is strictly a ROM BIOS problem is like saying you can fill a Ten Gallon container with 30 gallons of water! Overlays work, but are third-party and thus not part of DOS- my BIOS can accept values greater than the 1024 but my lowly DOS 6.0 can only get to so many, giving me pratically the same problem Tommy had solved by circumventing (or "extending") BIOS and DOS limitations. It's not that I was accusing anyone of being entirely wrong, but the problem had to do with DOS 6.2 and next thing you know some are suggesting he change the OS altogether! I'm glad he found a practical solution... It seems everyone who responded to this thread, including myself for whatever reason, focused on one aspect of the dilemma that best fit our heuristic; thus prevented ourselves in seeing some truth in what others had to say. My apologies to Fred (and any others who didn't suggest he trash his computer), for not seeing the merit in your proposals. I am ashamed :-(

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I can see what you are saying BOC. We all looked at what we wanted to see. I am glad Tom worked it all out. Thanks TechGUY for pointing us to the whitepaper, it sure put the problem in the correct order. You should still be able to access all of a 2.1GB Drive in one go however, and I see the problems with larger drives and wanting to partition it! Tom did not however make it clear in his first post that the drive was in fact larger than 2.1GB leading to other problems as it did. We all have learned a trick or two here. Thanks to all.

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