not enough RAM to maxblast

Hi

I've been given a 6GB maxtor HDD which I would like to put into a 486 (8MB RAM) - which runs W95b and dual boots for DOS6.22/W3.11

I'm limited by the 524MB BIOS limit so need to use maxblast to put a DDO or EZ-BIOS or whatever onto the HDD

at the moment the system runs happily with a 850MB WD Caviar, which already had DDO on it...

I've run into a problem - maxblast makes a 6MB RAMDRIVE - this doesn't leave enough memory to actually run maxblast!

I've tweaked the RAMDRIVE down to 4.8MB by not copying the self-extractor to the RAMDRIVE...

...but I'm still a bit short. Rather gallingly it runs out of memory as its loading up DMNTFS.DLL - it's loading up all it thinks it needs to cover every eventuality.

All I want it to do is to "bless" the HDD with the necessary overlay etc to get its whole size recognised, then it's over to FDISK.

(this is Caldera DR-DOS...)

am I sunk without trace? any help much appreciated.

best wishes, HJ.

 

Hello Hugh,
I think you are trying to put a quart into a pint pot as they used
to say.
A 486 was not built for the setup you are looking for.
What do you want to do with this relic ?
Kinder to yourself timewise to give it to an orphanage.
regards

 

Hi merlin

sadly, there is truth in what you say but...

for ages now this old relic's been running W95b, OrCAD SDT (schematics, partlisting), Generic CADD6 (CAD), Adobe Photoshop4 & TypeManager, Opera6.04, Netscape4.08, IE3 (old browsers for web interoperability work)... all a bit slow but crashes are almost unheard of...

(apart from when I'm swiping interrupts and get it wrong, that crashes it quite comprehensively...)(which is when I'm glad there isn't that much to go wrong)

it just seems really stupid that it can't run a program off a floppy!

now, if I could get another 8MB RAM for the thing, that might be quite a good move... I think it might even go as high as 24 ! if I could find the modules.

best wishes, HJ

 

When looking for memory for that 486, I believe what you want is a NON-EDO 72 pin SIMM, not sure if EDO would be supported.

 

thanks Mark

it would certainly run better with a bit more...

I'm trying to see if Maxblast for Windows will get any further (plenty virtual memory!)

the BIOS autodetected the 6GB without problems, even got the size correct !

...but at the moment I can only get at the first 500MB or so.

best wishes, HJ.

 

Hi

not looking good.

I tried maxblast for Windows but during the installation it complained that ODIFCopy.dll wouldn't register; tried running it anyway, and it couldn't find any maxtor HDD on the system so refused to play.

At this point the maxtor was slave, WD 850MB was master (from which W95 was running)... Windows Explorer could see the first 500MB of the maxtor and I could get files on and off, semingly reliably.

Thus:

the BIOS autodetects the maxtor fine (Cyl, Hd, Sec -> Size)

if I use the boot disk version of maxblast it sees and (correctly) identifies the maxtor, but runs out of RAM; (mainly because all the options I don't need have to exist in memory twice simultaneously ) The splash screen works, though.

if I use maxblast for Windows it doesn't recognise the HDD (although everything else does)

unless anyone can come up with something hopeful, I'm giving this one up

best wishes, HJ.

 

goodness, I think I may have sussed it

Ontrack Drive Manager 9.53

best wishes, HJ.