NEC ready 7624 Harddrive limits...

[sLIVER]

Hey all,

Does anyone know the limits for an old nec ready 7624 computer for the hard drive size. Was 1.6, trying 6.8gig Maxtor 90680d4.

Friend is trying to boot from a win98 disk and it hangs. Boots from disk fine with the cd rom disconnected. HD is detected in bios ok and reports proper size. Jumpers are ok as well...

Thanks...

[sLIVER]

correction....computer does NOT boot ok from floppy with hd connected and cd disconnect (eitherway)...Only ok when cd is the only device connected.

[TangleWeb]

It is possible the CD-ROM drive is bad. CD-ROM drives are the one of the most failure prone devices in a PC. They don't always fail completely, they will just act "flaky". It is also possible that the Windows 98 CD is damaged. If it's a "backup copy" that's been created with a CD Burner, it's possible the drive does not read burned CDs. First try another CD to see if it reads that. Preferable a CD the PC will boot from, like a Norton AV CD. If that doesn't work, I would hang another CD-ROM drive off the case, disconnect the existing CD-ROM & connect the temp one & see if you have any better luck. If you don't have a spare CD-ROM lying around, you can pull one from another system for testing. Make sure it's jumpered correctly for the system you are testing.

To install the OS, I personally prefer to boot from a Windows 98 boot floppy, fdisk & format the drive then create a directory called "Win98 (or whatever), then create a DOS directory & copy xcopy32.exe to it. I then boot from a floppy that I created (I think with a file from Windrivers) that gives DOS Mode CD-ROM support. Once you do that type path=C:\DOS, then change to the CD-ROM drive. The boot disk I have makes the CD-ROM drive "Z", then type cd win98 to get to the win98 folder & at the C:\Win98> prompt type xcopy32 *.* C:\Win98 which copies all files (*.*) from the Win98 folder on the CD. This is all you need to install Windows 98 from the hard drive. You have the added benefit that you will never be prompted to insert the CD later if you add or remove a Windows Component.

Once you have done this, reboot & type cd win98 to get to the C:\Win98> prompt. Type setup to begin installation of Windows 98.

To back up a little, if the CD-ROM is bad, when you boot from the floppy that gives CD-ROM support it may give an error indicating that it did not detect a valid CD-ROM. If it passes this phase, it may fail in the copy operation, giving a CDR error of some type.

[TangleWeb]

sLiver,

I hadn't seen your second post when I posted mine.

You almost certainly have a configuration error with the drive controller settings. Try jumpering the Hard Drive as Master on the primary IDE channel with no slave present (Make darn sure you have identified the master connection on the motherboard accurately), then connect the CD-ROM to the secondary channel as either master or slave (it really doesn't matter since it's on the secondary channel) The important thing is to put the CD-ROM on the secondary IDE channel. Of course if that system only has a single IDE cable, you will need another IDE ribbon cable. Any computer store or shop will have one for very little money. Performance is better in this configuration also.

P.S. I do..... Dinner's ready!

[sLIVER]

Hey thanks for the response!

I wish it were as simple as a messed cd rom...

He is booting off of a win98 floppy with just the HD connected and it hangs...but the bios reports the size and cyl correctly.

With no ide devices, it boots off of the floppy ok.

It has to do with the mobo and the hd. I'm suspecting size compatibility with mb but again the bios sees it correctly.

Boot floppy is ok. Cd rom is ok.

[TangleWeb]

Just for the heck of it, boot from the Maxtor "Maxblast" installation floppy & see what it says. It will detect BIOS incompatibity. If the drive didn't come with the Maxblast floppy, download it from the Maxtor web-site.

[sLIVER]

I was thinking the same thing about the maxblast...but then i though it would probably hang just like a dos disk...

[krazy123]

I will try it anyway, damn - should eat something first. let you know about it in a bit.

ps: thanks for the help

[sLIVER]

hehehe...Chuck?

[TangleWeb]

Maxtor has pretty good tech support. You can e-mail or call them. If the drive that you replaced was working, you should have no problem with the new drive if it's jumpered the same.

Try putting the old drive back in & see if it still works. If you replaced the old drive because it failed, perhaps the controller failed, not the hard drive.

[krazy123]

tried maxblast.......
got divide error on start-up....
no idea what that is.....
i am sure that the controller is working....
i think i may try a new ide ribbon with two connections on it rather then the one.....
this is sure annoying.........

[krazy123]

tried the new ide ribbon, still no good.

[krazy123]

Got it going, just in case anyone reading this is have a similar problem I will post the answear.

I searched the maxtor site and for the drive I got there is a special jumper position that allows drives of a large capacity to be used on older motherboards.

setting is
on on
O O O O
| |
O O O O O
j j j j j
5 4 4 4 4
0 8 6 4 2


this is the one that worked for me, however there is a whole bunch of different settings for slave, cable select etc (i used master).

Thanks for trying to help guys,
guess I should see if i can answear someone elses question.

chuck

[TangleWeb]

It looks like you found the solution. This is good information for hardware types, so I'm posting it.

I quote from the Maxtor site;

"2.1 GB Barrier
Symptom: ****"System hang"**** occurs when the BIOS has a problem translating the cylinders and heads and locks the system during POST (power on self test)."

Install the Cylinder Limitation Jumper (J46 on the Maxtor hard drive) and use the MaxBlast or MaxBlast Plus software to prepare the hard drive. The application of the Cylinder Limitation will NOT decrease the capacity of the hard drive.
NOTE: Some Operating Systems will NOT function properly when the Cylinder Limitation Jumper is applied (e.g., Windows NT, Linux, etc.). Refer to Q&A 3 for a possible solution.
NOTE: If needed, user's may obtain MaxBlast from Maxtor. See How to access the MaxBlast Plus Software at the end of this document.

<a href="http://www.maxtor.com/Maxtorhome.htm" target="_blank">http://www.maxtor.com/Maxtorhome.htm</a>