Update or Re-format?

Hello,my cousin just dropped her old computer at my house.I format the harddrive to erase all the old software.The computer is a AST bravo,with a
266 mhz processor,with a 4.0 gb harddrive.I planned on using Win 95 to save
HD space.After booting back up with my Win 95 boot disk,now all the computer is seeing is 2.0 HD space.Do i need to upgrade my BIOS or re-format
the drive and maybe partition it?I know that some early versions of 95 only
sees 2 gb at a time.Also how would i upgrade my Bios,the date on it is 02/21/98 6.0 11A.The bios maker is PhoenixBIOS 4.0 Release 6.0 11A

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Originally Posted by rtrottie

..After booting back up with my Win 95 boot disk,now all the computer is seeing is 2.0 HD space.Do i need to upgrade my BIOS or re-format
the drive and maybe partition it? I know that some early versions of 95 only sees 2 gb at a time...

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There you go then .. you know the answer ! :p .. so what are you doing asking ? :thumbs2:

Its all to do with FAT16 limits (FAT here refering to the filesystem used & the 16 refers to the number of bits used ), & as you've correctly stated the maximum volume recognisable without changing the cluster size is 2 gb, so your simplest answer is to partition it up ..

As for bios I'd leave 'well alone' unless you have other issues which might be helped, an updated bios won't do any good here as that's not constraining the partition size (generally a bios update might help bios see 'large' drives), but the file system is ! :)

If you're really gonna keep that thing in service, load 98SE because most software and hardware requires at least that OS to run.

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After booting back up with my Win 95 boot disk,now all the computer is seeing is 2.0 HD space.Do i need to upgrade my BIOS or re-format

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If that is exactly what happened, then it's not the operating system as such that is the problem..it is the fact that your win95 boot disk did not enable large disk support. Try using a win98 bootdisk and enabling the large disk support to fdisk and format. You can also use a win95 version b disk to format with FAT32

Doesn't matter what version of Windows you use as a boot disk: prior to Win95 OSR2, Windows is incapable of recognizing disks larger than two GB. Even if you format the drive with an OSR2 boot disk, the original W95 still won't recognize it because it doesn't support FAT32. Almost no current hardware or software will run under Windows 95 OSR2, let alone the original Windows 95. Virtually all USB devices require Windows 98 (or later) to work, for instance. Even current version s of Internet Explorer, Norton AntiVirus don't run under W95 or W98 (first edition).

Boot from a W98SE cd, reformat the drive and load Windows from there.

I wasn't talking about the operating system..I figured you guys had already pretty much covered that..but..it does matter what version you use as a boot disk..win 95 version 1 will only format in FAT16. I was just telling him that yes..in response to his original question..he would have to re fdisk and reformat with a fat 32 capable boot disk of some sort. and then what ever os from os2 on up he wants would work.