Emulate Dual drive to overcome hard disk limits
MAD sound card disease
Do a full backup
Using ToolsCalculate in Word
Make your slave your master with an active partitions
Install hard drives using Windows 95 startup disk
Reading previous issues of PC World, there have been various discussions of ways to circumvent the limitations that the BIOS imposes on the size of the Hard Drive in most older computers. Phil Hardstaff's letter in the February 1996 issue (page 204) was a good breakdown of the problems associated with the 504Mb limits imposed by these older BIOSs/IDE controllers.
In the March 1996 issue, in response to Anne Kenman's problem, you stated that if her BIOS cannot support the 1Gb drive, and sector translation does not work with that particular drive and/or BIOS, then the only alternative left if she wanted to use that particular drive was to partition the drive. As Phil said, you cannot simply partition the drive into two halves, as virtually half of the drive will not be accessible because of the ROM BIOS limitation.
When installing a new drive the first operation is to enter the correct translation geometry in the CMOS before you can partition the drive with FDISK (the BIOS will ignore anything over 1,024 cylinders anyway, as Phil stated), and anything less than the correct number of cylinders for that drive will not give full capacity for that particular drive. You mentioned that tricks like halving the cylinders and doubling the heads (sector translation) can fool the BIOS/FDISK and still obtain the full capacity for the drive, or using software such as MicroHouse EZ Drive to bypass the BIOS will also work. This is all based on using a single hard drive configuration that has more cylinders than the 1,024 that the BIOS will accept (larger than 504Mb).
There is another method, but this does have its limitations/drawbacks - configure the drive to emulate two separate drives. As Anne has selected a 1Gb drive (anything over this size won't work, as I will elaborate on later), she has only one choice: divide it into two equal sizes.
The jumper blocks you can set for Master or Slave operation should be set on the appropriate pins to allow Dual Drive emulation. Most new hard drives should be able to be configured as a Master, a Slave or to Dual drive emulation. Check before buying the drive for the ability for Dual drive emulation. This should be in the manual supplied with the new drive. Some older models can be configured this way as well. This lets you access the full capacity of the drive by making the computer think it has two physical drives. Then enter the translation geometry into the CMOS - Hard drive 1/Hard Drive 2, using half the number of cylinders for each drive, but the Heads/sectors etc for each stay the same as originally stated for the drive. This effectively turns the Hard disk into two separate drives.
The drawbacks, as I mentioned earlier, are that you cannot then use a physical second drive on that port. As the IDE controller will only allow two drives per controller, Anne will not be able to use her old drive unless she has a second hard drive port on the motherboard to run the old drive alongside the first, which is in dual drive emulation. This would be right next to where the cable from the first is plugged into the motherboard. If this is the case then she will be able to install her old drive on this port alongside the new one. If not then she will have to purchase a bus adaptor card to install into one of the expansion slots - Catch 22.
Obviously if the drive exceeds 1Gb then this method will not allow the full capacity of the drive to be available, as anything above 504Mb per drive will not be accessible. This method is not restricted to people with the 528,482,304 bytes/504Mb BIOS limit, but can also be used with computers without the BIOS limitation. However, in this case it is not necessary, as creating smaller partitions with FDISK would be more appropriate, and the advantage is that you would still be able to add a second physical drive. It is an easier method for people with the BIOS limit than a BIOS upgrade, or using EZ drive and so on, but it is restricted to upgrades of up to 1Gb (1,056,964,608 bytes). This is because anything above 1Gb is more than the 504Mb (528,482,304 bytes) and so exceeds the limit and will be "lost".
This method will also reduce the cluster sizes and thus reduce "slack space", caused by the DOS allocation methods from 16,384 bytes per allocation unit (cluster) in drive capacities of 512Mb to 1,024Mb (1Gb), down to 8,192 bytes per allocation unit (drives from 256Mb up to 512Mb). This is another advantage of splitting the drive into two separate drives and also using FDISK to divide any drive into several partitions.
Drives of over 1Gb up to 2Gb have allocation units of 32,768 bytes, pretty large if most of the files are only a couple of hundred bytes or so each. That adds up to a considerable amount of wanted space. But I suppose it is relative to the size of the drive. Some people might say, "if you've got plenty why worry?"
It is a pity to waste that space because "You can never have too much hard disk space", even if you are lucky enough to have a 2Gb drive.
This is another solution to a problem that appears to be quite regular in appearance in the Help Screen, but has so far not been mentioned. It is limited, as I said, to upgrades of up to 1Gb. I hope this will be of value to some of your readers.
- Anthony Bouffler
Editor's note: Thanks Anthony. That's a very useful suggestion,
and I can only hope that Anthony's points are clear. I won't add
anything for fear of confusing the issue further, but this gives
me an idea: our next . . .
The answer for the problem that Ted Matulevicius has in the April Help Screen (page 189) is simple . . . lose the card.
The Mediamagic/ISP16 card is only about 60 per cent Sound Blaster-compatible. MAD16 is an obscure card that I've only seen sold as a Mediamagic Card from IPC.
Ted's problems with games is a standard method for telling you that the program hates your hardware. From my experience with this kind of card, first the digital sound effects just won't happen, then, if the system is wanting for more memory anyway, the FM music will quit.
Programs coming up against crook hardware or inadequate drivers will always drop the SFX [special effects] to get the rest of the program working. Two examples are X Wing and Dark Forces - it just won't let you in at all unless you do what I did, and take the sound config file from another Lucasarts game and drop it in the offending directory.
Your examples of strings are correct of course, but if the card is left wanting, there's nothing you can do but go for original parts. I spent over a year going back to the vendor to get this card working until, finally, after a manager was rude when I suggested the card was never compatible with Sound Blaster, I purchased an original SB card and now I wish I had a long time ago. The only upside of the whole experience is I've learnt a lot about sound cards.
All the usual kudos about the magazine.
- Russell O'Neill
Editor's note: There, you see? Didn't I say it was bad sound card compatibility all along? Other readers please note: you don't have to wait until I'm wrong to write in.
I'm concerned that people think that they can just back up their data and have a good recovery method. I annually reformat the hard disk on my machine and reinstall all my applications as a method to get rid of all the rubbish which tends to accumulate on my PC. I tend to have a reasonable number of applications, and it takes more than two days to reinstall and configure all the software. Most people don't realise how long it takes to put applications back and set them up with your colours, layouts, options . . .
The second point is most people, including myself, don't know what their data files are. I perform a full backup and a data backup before doing the reformat, and commonly find that I have forgotten to back up important data in the data backup, so I have to retrieve it from the full backup. The sort of files I forget to back up are my Word .dot (template) files, which contain very important macro files, and the little .bat files I have hidden in subdirectories.
I personally recommend to friends that they take a complete copy of their system after any major upgrades, and then keep differential backups from that point on. A differential backup, for those who don't know, is a backup of all the files which have changed since the last major backup. This is usually achieved by telling the backup program not to set the archive bit.
Backing up data is much faster and considered simpler, but it does have high risks which people have to consider.
- Wayne Corbin
Editor's Note: Thanks Wayne. Yours is a belt-and-braces approach, as opposed to the flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants system, favoured by those who are not afraid of ending up with the seat out of their trousers or being caught with their pants down.
In your Help Screen - Word Processing Q&A in the February issue of Australian PC World - you had an item "Words and numbers" where you suggested using field codes or a macro to do calculations in Word.
I find the simplest method is to just use the ToolsCalculate function referred to in your macro directly. You don't need to create a macro; just use Tools Customise to assign the ToolsCalculate command to a menu, key or toolbar button (I use the calculator icon).
Then you just type in the calculation (eg 5*4+9*5), highlight it and press the button. The answer appears in the menu bar. Press paste (<Ctrl>+V) to replace the calculation with the answer.
This function is very powerful: it correctly handles operator precedence (eg, doing the above multiplications before the addition). It formats the result according to the input numbers (eg, include a comma in one of the numbers, and it will put commas in thousands in the answer where appropriate).
In Word for Windows version 1, this function was in the menus by default, and assigned to <Ctrl>+=. For some reason, Microsoft now hides it away.
- Knox Cameron
Editor's Note: Thanks Knox. I couldn't agree more about ToolsCalculate.
It's a great command. I have a small macro that does just what
you suggest - runs ToolsCalculate and then does the paste automatically.
It couldn't be much simpler:
Sub MAIN
Insert Str$(ToolsCalculate())
End Sub
But if you don't want to create a macro, your approach is the answer. I like your idea of associating it with <Ctrl>+ =
In the Help Screen of your April 1996 issue, there is a letter from John Haynes (page 209) about copying data from a master to a slave drive, and then making that slave drive the master drive on another machine and booting from it.
I think the reason he cannot get the slave drive to boot, even if it has the DOS system files on it, is because the partition on that drive is not set as the active partition.
If you try to make a partition on a drive active when it is a slave drive, FDISK gives you the message that only partitions on drive 1 can be made active. This is why when the drive is a slave, and then changed to a Master, it does not boot, but when you boot from a floppy, you can see all the data on the drive.
To fix this, John needs to boot from a floppy drive, run FDISK and then set the primary partition active, which is option number 2 on the FDISK menu.
While I'm here, I may as well let you know The Help Screen is the best section in your mag.
- Ian Fordham
Editor's note: Thanks Ian. For the benefit of other readers, I followed up on Ian's remark that Help Screen is the best section of PC World. It turns out this means PC World in general is very good, and Help Screen is very, very good, not that Help Screen is the best of a bad bunch.
Just recently I decided to install Windows 95. Quite a hefty debate since my old system (DOS and Windows 3.11) worked fine (along with all the GPFs). I have now installed Windows 95 five times.
I had a lot of trouble with my 1.08Gb Quantum Fireball IDE HDD. It required a 16-bit SYS driver to be loaded in the boot sector. No problem as long as you don't run a 32-bit system. I found that when I went into System and clicked the Performance tab in Control Panel, Win95 told me I was running in MS-DOS compatibility mode and my disk access was 16-bit.
My first installation only lasted about two days and then I lost everything. The second and third times were not much different. I was also constantly reminded that Windows 95 may have a virus. The third time I lost everything, I decided to look around first.
I tried to use my MS-DOS 6.2 boot disk to reformat my HDD. I found that although it could see the drive it couldn't access it properly. The only alternative was to use the supplied HDD install disk to reinstall the drive.
I had a brainstorm and decided to use the Windows 95 Startup disk (complete with FDISK), and to my surprise it could see the drive fine and formatted it without a problem. I then reloaded DOS 6.2 and Win3.11 without problems, and then proceeded to load Windows 95. I checked the Control Panel-System-Performance tab and found that it was now reading in 32-bit and no longer thought I had a virus. Since then, the OS is stable and I'm back to where I was before - GPFs. You may be wondering why I stayed with Win95 even after all the hassles - I like the interface.
By the way, if you have this problem don't try to use the FDISK /MBR command to clear your master boot record or Windows 95 will crash irretrievably. It may be simple and you may have already heard this many times, but the readers may like to get this tip - it would have saved me a lot of trouble.
The April 1996 issue was my third read of your mag. I find the Help Screen very interesting and full of useful tips. I read April's Help Screen and had to dig out the past months just to read them. I like the way you write. Thanks for the time and I hope you have the time to reply.
- Ray Jewell
Editor's Note: Thanks Ray. That's a good tip and it could save
our readers a lot of time. I've been advising people to reformat
before installing Windows 95, and now it turns out you have to
reformat with a particular disk. We'll soon have the absolute
optimum approach completely pinned down.