Error When Upgrading Hard Drive

[mattm16]

Hello Again:

Sorry for all the questions, but here is another one. I recently got a Seagate ST51080A Hard drive, and I do know that I need to use a drive overlay software. I have a Packard Bell Legend 610. I have EZ Drive on a bootable floppy, and I have verified that it does recognize the original Seagate drive. However, when it starts up it displays the following error: "BIOS Read Error BB on drive 80". Is that because I don't have a BIOS setting for the drive correct? It is jumpered as the only drive (no jumpers on).

Thanks Again

Matt

 

[mattm16]

I did try a SATA to PATA adapter, and it doesn't work also. Are these not compatible? I do have the hard drive formatted to FAT 32

 

[krebizfan]

I did try a SATA to PATA adapter, and it doesn't work also. Are these not compatible? I do have the hard drive formatted to FAT 32

What version of the OS are you using? MS-DOS through 6.22 can't read FAT32 drives; you would need Win95 OSR2 or later.

How did you hook up the SATA to PATA adapter? I think I may have looked up the wrong drive or PB model because I don't see where a SATA connection would have fit.

 

[mattm16]

What version of the OS are you using? MS-DOS through 6.22 can't read FAT32 drives; you would need Win95 OSR2 or later.

How did you hook up the SATA to PATA adapter? I think I may have looked up the wrong drive or PB model because I don't see where a SATA connection would have fit.

So, I have the IDE cable connected to the adapter, and the drive connected to the adapter. I did get it to boot as jumpering the adapter as Slave. (Still receive error on boot of invalid configuration in BIOS) However, no matter what selection I set the hard drive to, when I boot of either OnTrack Disk Manager, or WD EZ Drive, it freezes on detecting a drive with WD, or loading Disk Manager with OnTrack. I do know the drive is good. I a wondering if this old of a PC is just not compatible with an adapter, even though it states it works in DOS. I have tried other drives also. Should it be formatted in FAT 16 first possibly?

 

[Timo W.]

Are you aware that you normally need to init / format the drive using the overlay software's install/setup? Did you do that? Since you say it is formatted FAT32, it seems you did not.

Also, whenever you use any adapters, make it master and the only device on the cable. Most adapters do not work well in a master/slave configuration, especially not on such old systems.

 

[mattm16]

This is what I did: I did manage to partition the drive so it has a 2GB partition and that was formatted for FAT16. If the adapter is not jumpered as Slave, the PC will not boot. I do get a "Fixed Disk Error" on startup. I am not 100% sure what to set the settings in the BIOS to. If the software freezes on "Gathering Information" I cannot format nor initialize the drive.

 

[Timo W.]

The Seagate ST51080A is a 1 GB drive - how did you manage to create a 2 GB partition?

Anyway, drive overlay software is normally used by setting the drive type in the BIOS to type 1. Then boot from floppy and let the drive overlay software do the rest.

Do not set the drive to "auto" in the BIOS or entering its real CHS values. If that would work, you would not need any drive overlay software at all. That's probably why it gets stuck at boot. So, as written, set it to type 1.

Btw, I would recommend using the Ontrack disk manager instead of EZ Drive. That always worked for me with almost no issues.

 

[mattm16]

Sorry, I have discovered the Seagate is a bad drive - I bought it on eBay, and it is bad. I have several drives sitting around here that are SATA, and am using the lowest capacity one. Now, I did set it to Type 1, and OnTrack boots successfully. It doesn't detect a drive though - I have the jumper as Slave and in the BIOS drive 2 as Type1. However, when I change the adapter jumper to Master, and change the BIOS to Type 1 for Master, there is no POST. The Packard Bell logo doesn't even come up. If I disconnect the drive and just leave the adapter connected, it will POST.