Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: FireCrack on June 12, 2005, 08:44:36 pm
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I'm trying to take an old hard drive from a 486 and put it into a modern computer (windows XP) i've already done all the hardware part but windows wont recognise it... soo, anyone have any help?
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Just one question, why are you deliberatly trying to slow down your computer? :confused:
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Originally posted by FireCrack
I'm trying to take an old hard drive from a 486 and put it into a modern computer (windows XP) i've already done all the hardware part but windows wont recognise it... soo, anyone have any help?
If the OS on the old computer was DOS 6.22/Win 3.1 or Win95, there's a good chance the hard drive could be FAT16. Windows XP doesn't support this ancient file system. I would suggest you put the drive back into its old 486 system, install Windows 98, and run Drive Converter to change the file system to FAT32. Once that's done, XP should recognize the drive.
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Originally posted by FireCrack
I'm trying to take an old hard drive from a 486 and put it into a modern computer (windows XP) i've already done all the hardware part but windows wont recognise it... soo, anyone have any help?
um... what's the capacity on that thing?... 500 mb?
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The 486 hdd I have in my closet somewhere is 101.213 mb. Boy have times changed.
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Originally posted by MatthewPapa
The 486 hdd I have in my closet somewhere is 101.213 mb. Boy have times changed.
yeah, seriously.
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I actually had an 800mb drive in my 486. That thing was hot ****.
486/66 DX2, 32mb of RAM, sound blaster pro... mmmm...
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Sound Blaster Pro was garbage. It was barely a step up from the original Sound Blaster. SB16 was better than that gold plated piece of crap.
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Reminds me of my olde 386 20mhz, 40Mb HD, SB16, 4x CD-Rom, Win 3.1, 5.25'' Floppy, 3.5'' Floppy.... those were the simple days.
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Top of the line 400mhz versus top of the line 4000mhz dual core dual processor... 3900% increase...
Nah, nothing has changed!
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Might want to check your jumpers as well to make sure you're properly mastered/slaved, or cable selected for all drives *GAG*
That, and make sure that the information in the BIOS is set according to the drive specifications, such as Sectors, Cylinders, Heads information. Sometimes your BIOS will not detect this information and it'll need to be force-fed.
Looks like Deepspacer's got me beat.
My first hard drive had a conner 800mb drive in it, I believe I got in to this all back in '96, but I've been messing with computers all my life. started out on the Apple II's of course..
I remember the days where if I got to work on the macintosh, that the mouse was the coolest thing evar. Now I sometimes loathe picking up my logitech MX1000 wondering if it'll be screwy today or not.
I still have a working Sound Blaster 16! Pair that up with my Pentium II Seattle 440BX motherboard and it's a killer rig for the good old DOS games. Man, having to set up your IRQ, DMA, all that good stuff, I miss those days...
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Originally posted by FireCrack
I'm trying to take an old hard drive from a 486 and put it into a modern computer (windows XP) i've already done all the hardware part but windows wont recognise it... soo, anyone have any help?
What type of format does the drive have right now?
And why do you want to do this anyway?
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Ok, the reason i wnat to dothis is that the drive has the whole commander keen series on it is well as a ton of other games wich are awesome.
Anyways, i dont think i'd be able to install 98 on this thing
Now, some distro's of linux support FAT16 right, so what would mabye be a good distro to use on a liveCD so i can just copy my files over to my other HDD.
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Well, originally I was going to scream "WHY?!!?!"... but since it's for awesome old gaming, I think that's a reasonable..um..reason.
Good luck.
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http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_buvl.asp
As you can see from the above link Win XP fully supports all of the FAT file system formats. The reason your not being able to access the drive is that it prob inst being recognized by your BIOS. As Nix said you're probrably going to have to enter the drive info by hand since these old drives are not plug and play. All of this can be done in the BIOS wich can usually be acessed by pressing ''Delete'' on startup. Also dont forget to check the jumpers. Also chaging the flat cable the HD is connected to might help, since in the way it's currently setup it might be conflicting with other devices.
Good Luck!
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Well, one time when i installed it before i had set the jumpers right (i have set them right now) it booted up to my 486's OS wich was simply entitled "Menu" or somthing similar, so i'm sure the bios atleast recognised it once or twice, but i'l try the bios thing.
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set it as a slave drive on another system..
easy done. :nod:
it'll prolly be ata33 in any case, most comps are backwards compatible to that.
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Originally posted by Annorax
If the OS on the old computer was DOS 6.22/Win 3.1 or Win95, there's a good chance the hard drive could be FAT16. Windows XP doesn't support this ancient file system.
Windows XP DOES support FAT16. Use google if you don't believe me.
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Originally posted by FireCrack
Ok, the reason i wnat to dothis is that the drive has the whole commander keen series on it is well as a ton of other games wich are awesome.
dude well if it's the commander keen series you want, send me a PM
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The hard drive is probably SCSI. Are you sure you have it hooked up allright and the SCSI card configured correctly?
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If it's a consumer system then it's unlikely to be SCSI. If it is IDE, then the best thing to do is to check the BIOS to see if it will recognise the drive before you boot into Windows. If it doesn't, then check to see if the drive is set up for master/slave, if appropriate, using the jumpers on the back. If that still doesn't work, try entering the drive parameters manually in the BIOS.
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You're better off just getting Commander Keen from the internet. There are lots of old warez sites for games like this. Nice and unsupported. :D
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If the OS on the old computer was DOS 6.22/Win 3.1 or Win95, there's a good chance the hard drive could be FAT16. Windows XP doesn't support this ancient file system.
:eek2:
Ok, there should not be any problem. You can use it. Every MS operating system supports FAT16 :mad2: (disks up to 2GB) even FAT12 (for floppy disks). If not you won't be able to use floppy disks and most of flash disks.
Have you looked into Disk Manager (or how is it called in English version)? You may have disk installed but XP forgot to assign a drive letter to it.
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I still think the best suggestion was to check in the BIOS if the drive is present. You're wasting your time doing anything in windows until you've done that.
Once you've done that I'd try Wojta's suggestion. Right click on my computer and choose manage >> Disk Management. Even if the drive is corrupted or isof a format that Windows doesn't understand it should show up there.
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Originally posted by Acer
The reason your not being able to access the drive is that it prob inst being recognized by your BIOS. As Nix said you're probrably going to have to enter the drive info by hand since these old drives are not plug and play.
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Umm ok, entering the dirve info by hand didnt work at all.
Any tips?
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it'll prolly be ata33 in any case
:wtf: on a 486 machine?
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I'll bet that it's wrong master/slave settings or bad cable. You said that BIOS had recognized it once before? Some disks have many settings. It's a difference for example between master single and master.
If you are using secondary IDE check also it's functionality. I have one MB where secondary IDE doesn't work.
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Ok, i'm on the primaary slave IDE, my computer recognised i t when i had it set to master but not slave. I'm sure my cable is good, it was on the same one when it worked. Umm, yeah. I'l check again, later.
The hard driveis a 'Seagate ST3120A'
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Why don't you just copy all the data onto a USB flash drive and then put it on your main computer? :p
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Becasue USB ports were realy common back in the 1980s...
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The 486 came out in the very early 90's.
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...and USB didn't come out until the late '90s
Originally posted by Ghostavo
Just one question, why are you deliberatly trying to slow down your computer? :confused:
It would depend on how he's hooking it up. If it's on it's own controller with it's own cable then it certainly won't do any harm. Even if it's on the same cable as one of his main drives it still shouldn't cause any trouble as modern IDE controllers are apparently able to handle sifferent device speeds on the same cable.
To reiterate what others have said: Make sure the jumpers are set correctly (Master or Slave only, ignore the cable select setting) and the BIOS is set to auto-detect the drive type in that position (primary master, primary slave etc).
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I just cant do this, it aint working nomatter what i do. I'm gonna pop it back in the 486 and just floppy everything over. Wich will be annoying, because it's a 800 meg drive (quite big for it's day)
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Could you whip your CD or DVD burner out of your main machine, stick it in the old one, burn a disc and then move it back? That'd be worth a try I think... :)
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Originally posted by pyro-manic
Could you whip your CD or DVD burner out of your main machine, stick it in the old one, burn a disc and then move it back? That'd be worth a try I think... :)
It's not quite that simple. You have to slow down your CD or DVD burner to make it compatible with the controller in this case. There is a certain way to do it, but I'm not sure how.
And all of this for Commander Keen....... :rolleyes:
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Why not transfer it via parallel port, or an old LAN adapter (probably can be found in a local thrift shop or novelty computer store, as a paperweight)?
Oh, and you can fit Commander Keen on 3-4 floppies really easily, IIRC. Just copy the main directories over.
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Originally posted by Kosh
And all of this for Commander Keen....... :rolleyes:
Commander Keen is the only half-decent game iD ever made.
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What about doom II and wolfenstein 3d? Those are classics.:nod:
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Classic != good. :p
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Ok, i'm gonna need a new keen6, the one i have refuses to patch (invalid version) and needs the patch to stop jittering.
EDIT: Now i'm realy an idiot, i deleted the root directory of my HDD (subdirectories are OK, but now there's no command parser) Simulotaneously i have lost my only philips screwdriver so i cant take it out nad try to work it on my new PC anymore!
Me
OK, updated situation report, i have gotten my new computers bios to recognise the old HDD, but whenever it's been regognised windows does NOT start, the computer just hangs on the loading screen, any tips here?
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OK, updated situation report, i have gotten my new computers bios to recognise the old HDD, but whenever it's been regognised windows does NOT start, the computer just hangs on the loading screen, any tips here? [/B]
Is it possible to boot from a floopy or a CD?
Sometimes it is not possible until the old HDD is connected as slave. Boot from CD (quite good is http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/). It won't help if you have NTFS on the main drive (it's DOS based). In this case use Bart PE (http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/) - something like live Windows XP CD. This CD must be prepared in cooperation with Windows XP installation CD.
Just copy the files from old disk and then disconnect it.
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Umm ok, i'm using knoppix (linux liveCD) right now, anyone care to tell me how to enable write support to my hard drives?
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It depends on what filesystem they are. If they're NTFS then write support is pretty much out of the question. Linux supports it, but it's been in "experimental" status for pretty much the last seven to eight years. They claim the latest version is fairly reliable but I wouldn't trust it myself but besides that, you can only overwrite files (ie you can only write a file if it's the exact same size each way). There's another solution, called captive NTFS, but since this requires DLLs from a proper Windows installation it's unlikely to be included in something like Knoppix.
If at least one of your drives is, god forbid, formatted with FAT32 (or another FAT variant) then the situation is much brighter. However, it should mount drives that support it as rw by default but I'm not overly familiar with Knoppix so I can't say for certain.
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Fixed! was as simple as "Right click drive>enable write support"
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what i'd like to do is put a win98 drive in my comp so i can play my dos games. :D
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Originally posted by Cobra
what i'd like to do is put a win98 drive in my comp so i can play my dos games. :D
vmware is pretty cheap when you think of how seksi it is... there are alternatives, of course, I don't really know the price of those tho.
you could look into dosbox, tho, it's made quite some progress.
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where can i get dosbox?
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dosbox (www.google.com) :rolleyes:
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sweet! now i can play mw2 or duke nukem again!
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Originally posted by redsniper
dosbox (www.google.com) :rolleyes:
gah! todays!
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lol.
well, i can play mw2, but one of its expansions is runable, and duke nukem 3d is playable... w00t...
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Duke Nukem 3D has a native Windows port available:
http://jonof.edgenetwork.org/index.php?p=jfduke3d
The Shadow Warrior source code was also release a month or so back and JonoF has a port of that too:
http://jonof.edgenetwork.org/?p=jfsw
If you want to get decent performance out of DOSBox then set the CPU core to 'dynamic' and wind the cycles up to something ridiculous like 40000 or even higher if your machine can handle it. Some games, particularly those based on the DOS/4GW extender, don't particularly like the dynamic core. For those that get particularly narky (Warcraft 2 and Descent1/2 in my experience) you can replace the DOS extender with one DOSBox like better: http://dos32a.sourceforge.net/
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................huh?
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Forgive my sleep-deprived lack of coherency but what I was trying to point out was:
1) You haven't needed to run Duke Nukem 3D in DOSBox for the last two years as 3DRealms have released the source and at least one half-decent Windows port is now available.
and
2) You can make games run faster in DOSBox by changing the core emulation in dosbox.conf to dynamic instead of normal (the default) and increasing the number of emulated cycles from 3000 (also a default setting) to something much higher (I use 40000-50000 myself but ymmv, it takes some experimentation to get right). I've managed to get games that were otherwise unplayable using the defaults to run at a somewhat decent rate (it falls somewhere between high-end 486 to bottom/midrange pentium speed).
However, not all games like the dynamic core (and running DOSBox with such insane numbers of emulated cycles with the normal core bogs everything down too much) due to an incompatibility between DOSBox and a popular DOS extender. That's easy enough to fix (replace DOS/4GW with DOS/32A) but it's a little complicated to explain at 4:30AM.