Topic: IDE Caching Controller

[Sandra]

I think this ones for Adept,unless I am very much mistaken  
After my no 2 drive passed away last week,I have been having difficulty finding a small enough drive for my lil ole PC to use ( 450 AMD K-6 running 98SE )
Its looking like the smallest that I am going to be able to get is around 30 or 40 gig. I have been told that my Bios is unlikely to see a drive of this size and if I create multiple partitions small enough for it to see that it may not "see" all the data all the time and may get confused ( a bit like me   )
I have been advised against updating the Bios as this can cause problems of its own.
Tonight I have been given an old IDE Caching Controller ISA card circa 1992 ( imagine it still uses SIMMS   )Has anyone any experience of using one of these? I have ben told they are hard to cofigure but I have got the manual for it and have found a webpage with the manual on  http://www.tekram.com.tw/Storageftp/IDE/DC-6X0/DC-620B/Manual/dc6x0cd.pdf
This model is the DC - 690C with a paddle board  
So this is just to give you advanced warning Adept of the problem I may be asking you tosort out in a day or two  
What are your thoughts on updating Bios and/or multiple partitions of a size my excisting Bios can "see"  

[Tony]

heres loads of IDE drives on Ebay Sandra here]

catch

PS: CoverPlan found me a new 10GB to replace a 8GB HDD about six months ago for my 533Mhz K6 PC

[Sandra]

Thanks Catch,I may have a go at these 2 from a guy who lives in Higham would you believe  

Quantum 6GB Ide Hard Drive    £8.50
 3  
 21-Dec-02 21:27:13  
   Seagate 7.5GB Ide Hard Drive    £6.53
 2  
 21-Dec-02 21:35:00  


If I get one he may allow me to pick it up and save the postage and the wait  
There are 3 days to go so will wait and see what happens in the meantime.
Maybe Adept will have been able to tell me if this caching things worth trying or not and then I may throw caution to the wind and get a 40gig drive which I can get locally for £55 brand new  

[Tony]

Higham eh, that would be a stroke of luck if it paned out, and I reckon he would let you pick em up, email him.

Are there many bidders ?

catch

[Sandra]

I think it said 3 for one and 2 for the other. I have never heard of quantum drives,does anyone know if they are ok or not?

[Tony]

Yer they are made by Maxtor look, Quantum Fireball is their full name I think Maxtor]

Well I'm off to bed now, nite nite sleep tight  

catch

[Sandra]

Thanks again Catch,sleep well  

[Tony]

Get to bed woman, I worry about you sometimes

To be honest I think Quantum Fireball were made by another company called, wait for it Quantum And they were taken over by Maxtor, who then dropped the Quantum handel but kept the Fireball trademark.

Now I'm really going to bed.

catch

[Sandra]

Well it looks like I may have to go that route as I can now save Adept some brain work  
Thanks to a lot of reading and Scrumpy Jacks help it appears this caching thing only supports up to a 4gig drive on up to 4 IDE drives so its definitely not worth bothering about  :'(
So can someone advise me on the pros and cons of Bios updates and whether I can partition a big drive into multiple small enough to see ones please  

[Adept]

I was going to say Sandra, that if the cache controller is of 1992 vintage, it's less likely to be able to see a large drive.

If you go for a Maxtor drive, you should be able to use at least 32GB of a 40GB drive. Maxtor have a utility called MaxBlast which allows BIOS challenged PCs to see larger drives.

I think Western Digital do a similar product, but I'm not sure.

[bat69]

Sandra,
You'll find that one of the jumpers on the rear of the HD will limit the size of the HD that the BIOS sees, you may have to enable this function, but try it without it first. If the drive isn't seen, the enable the jumper and try again.

I've used Quantum before and they have been ok for me

[Adept]

Thanks Bat, I was going to mention that but I forgot :-[

[Sandra]

Any ideas if Seagate do a similar thing as the 40 gig ones available locally for £55 are Seagate  

[Adept]

It looks very likely Sandra

Have a gander over here 8)

[Sandra]

Thanks Adept.I already have the diskwizard and have used it on other makes of hard drive to "Zero Fill" prior to running Fdisk and it does seem to work very well and is easy to understand the other parts which only work with Seagate drives.
it sounds like I may still need to update my Bios though,any thoughts on this