I have tried, without success, to install NT4.0 on an IBM PS/1. Originally a 486DX33, the machine now has an AMD 586 P75 upgrade processor, 64Mb RAM, and 6.5 and 2.5Gb hard discs (partitioned and formatted FAT16 on another PC, under NT4.0). The BIOS, which is 1993 and not upgradeable, is IDE only. Drive parameters are detected automatically and cannot be set manually. To handle the >528Mb hard discs, I have a Promise EIDEmax card and all works perfectly with DOS 6.0 and Win 3.1 (except that DOS 'Fdisk' only works with discs that have already been partitioned, not with brand new discs). When installing NT4.0, all goes well until NTLDR takes over. At that point the hard drive details detected are indicated as damaged or unformatted. Primary partitions, which are both within the 1024 cylinder limit, are shown as their correct size, but no partitioning within the extended partitions is detected at all. It seems clear that NTDETECT.COM is finding the original IDE only BIOS, but not the EIDEmax BIOS. Promise Technology are unhelpful, on the grounds that the card is too old; certainly there is nothing downloadable from their web site. So does anyone know of a driver to overcome this problem please? Thank you for any advice. Regards, J. Glenny.

Does the Promise Card have a Bootable BIOS ??. Though I do not like drive overlay software, connecting the drives to the original IDE controller and using the drive overlay software will overcome the BIOS limitation. In this situation it is best to install NT4 from the 4 diskette set.

Just a thought have you installed NT4 from the diskettes after the two drives have been returned to factory unformatted state ? http://www.killdisk.com NT4 should recognise the EIDE Controller during install.

Hello Plainandsimple, Thank you for your replies. The EIDEmax BIOS only works as an addition to the original BIOS; it cannot be used to boot from scratch. Like you I am not keen on overlay software, but it might come to it in the end. However, I would certainly lose the greatly enhanced access time given by the EIDEmax. I have not reverted to ex factory unformatted state. However, because the DOS Fdisk command would not look at a brand new disc with the EIDEMAX installed (only one previously partitioned), both hard discs were partitioned and formatted FAT16 when new, on another PC using Disc Administrator under NT4.0. Installed in the PS/1 they behave perfectly with DOS 6.0 and Win 3.1. When installing NT4.0 using the the three floppy discs, I end up with the 'damaged or unformatted' message and get no further; the process does not get as far as loading anything from the CD. If I use the WINNT/b command on the CD, a large number of files is copied to temporary directories on C drive, although files begining with '!' cannot be copied. Anyway, eventually the machine is re-booted with the basic NT4.0, but I end up in this case getting the standard message 'INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE System halted' and all I can do is switch off. Perhaps there is another similar card I should try, but I don't know of one. Regards, J.G.

According to info on the WWW the Promise does not need additional drivers, which I find strange. A suggestion would be to use PTS DOS 2000, as this version supports 4GB FAT16 partition, and recreate the partitions, then install NT4 from PTS DOS. My thinking is the partition creation outside the Promise Controllers control is causing the problem. Though admittedly MS-DOS is very lenient toi what it installs on. A PTS DOS 2000 Boot Floppy is here, this web page instruction can be followed for installing NT4 from PTS DOS: http://83.67.55.228/msdosnt4.htm

I downloaded the two PTS DOS files and made the boot disc. However, the machine booted up OK, but FDISK, like NT4, was unable to make sense of the existing partition and format information. Whereas NT4 senses the correct sizes for the primary and secondary partitions, although not their content, PTS DOS senses the primary partition as 538Mb (not 528) instead of 502. I am dubious about re-partitioining and formating in these circumstances, when both discs have already been partitioned and formatted correctly on a machine, using NT4 Disc Administrator. There seems to me to be a serious risk of 'wrap round'. It really does seem to come down to needing an NT4 driver; the EIDEmax is always detected during the POST even when attempting to boot under NT4, but is simply invisible to operating systems other than MS DOS.