Resurrecting a Legacy X86 PC..

[Vipersan]

Look what I found in my ex work CD collections

Definately dont toss it in the bin Neil ..
;)

 

[Topper]

Definately dont toss it in the bin Neil ..
;)

As if, I have held onto it for 13 years at least so a tad longer will make no difference

 

[Vipersan]

Still not managed to read a PD cart ..
I suspect the drive may be fubar'd
..But did make some progress ..
Managed to instal the Adaptec scsi card ..and found my way into the Adaptec bios setup ..
..where I could enable multiple LUN per scsi ID ..
(disabled by default)
In here it is also possible to enable any scsi device as 'bootable' ...as the scsi adapter is detected during 'post'.
my drive is ID 1 ...so enable multi LUN on ID1 ..
After re-boot I now see 2 devices ..
a CD and the PD which is seen as a removeable hard drive ..
Sadly the unit fails to 'see' either a CD or a PD cart ..
So I'm guessing the drive is faulty..
Nonetheless ..it is educational for me..
rgds
VS

 

[Channel Hopper]

If it's up for grabs I'll have it ..
Could have saved myself a tenner there ..
doh!

I had to double take on the Amazon price but it's yours. I'll add it to the bits I couldn't ship out last time.

Btw I have loads of magazines from the mid/late 90's with the CDs on the front doing nothing here.
And this was something my daughter found in a supermarket book giveaway on Friday, complete with disc.

 

[Vipersan]

No point in shipping any magazines CH ..
I have tons of my own ...
Subscribed to various back in the day ..and I'm in danger of becoming that bloke on TV who gets buried under newspapers..
Thanks all the same..

 

[Vipersan]

Gonna try something different next but will take some preperation time..
I remembered I had a monster 750gb IDE drive in the old freenas server in the loft ..
It still has data on it I want ..
It's formatted with UFS ..
Luckily I remembered I have a copy of UFS Explorer which will run on Windoze ..
It's slow but it gets the job done ..
So once I've transfered it's contents to my cold store ...it becomes free for experimentation ..
Assuming Chameleon can use it ..
all depends how LBA enabling copes ..
The intention is to try GAG
GAG, the Graphical Boot Manager
anyone used this ?
Claims to support multi booting of up to 9 operating systems ..with auto hide option ..
So in theory the various OS cannot 'see' each other ..
I currently have DOS 6.2/win 3.1/Win95/Win98SE/ Win 2000 & XPpro ..on seperate drives
..and hate keep pulling OS on caddies ..
If this works out I can add another 3 x O/S and have them co-exist without removal of the drives..
rgds
VS

 

[Vipersan]

So this is GAG ..>>>

• • Allows you to boot up to 9 different operating systems.
  • Can boot operating systems installed in primary and extended partitions. They can be installed on any hard disk too.
  • GAG doesn't need its own partition. It installs itself in the first track of the hard disk, which is reserved for this kind of programs. It can also be installed on a floppy disk, without using the hard disk.
  • Has a timer to boot a default operating system (selectable by the user).
  • The configuration menu can be protected with a password. Also, each operating system can be protected with its own password.
  • The program works in graphic modes (needs a VGA or better graphic card), and has a lot of icons.
  • Hides the primary partitions, allowing the installation of more than one DOS and/or Windows OS on the same hard disk.
  • Can exchange disk drives, allowing to boot from the second, third... hard disk operating systems such as MS-DOS.
  • Has a SafeBoot system, which allows you to boot your hard disk even if GAG is accidentally overwritten.

<<<< Looks interesting...
;)

 

[Channel Hopper]

You can add ME then

and maybe Mac o/s 8 and 9

 

[davemurgtroyd]

Don't forget Linux

 

[Vipersan]

I'll be building a seperate GAG drive for non windows OS ...as linux for exmple requires GRUB ..
First job is to get familiar with it ...by hopefully creating the simpler windoze multiboot.

 

[davemurgtroyd]

Would there be any problems using an SSD in these legacy PCs (using appropriate SATA to IDE convertor)?

 

[Vipersan]

In all honesty I dont know ..
but I'm thinking there may well be if used with some of the earlier OS ...
..the dos based ones such as 3.1 or 95 for example..
The only way to find out would be to try it..

 

[2cvbloke]

There's a cheaper and cheatier way to get an SSD on IDE, using Compact Flash cards and a suitable IDE-CF adaptor, may not have the same speeds as a SATA3 SSD, but, you'd never achieve those over PATA IDE anyway...

The only issue is getting a CF card these days that can be used as an IDE device, as some of them have been "cheapened" to remove that functionality, which is a shame cos I bought a couple CF cards a couple years back for my Amiga and an old laptop, damned things wouldn't recognise as IDE devices...

 

[Vipersan]

Yes indeed ...this method does work ...
This is the one I used to run Freenas on my old server.
bootable OS set as primary IDE..
But as 2cv points out ..
more recent CFs dont always boot..
This one does however..
rgds
VS

 

[Channel Hopper]

No point in shipping any magazines CH ..
I have tons of my own ...
Subscribed to various back in the day ..and I'm in danger of becoming that bloke on TV who gets buried under newspapers..
Thanks all the same..

Not the magazines Mr Trebus, the CDs, there would have been a bunch of full / non trial utilities on them each month.

 

[PaulR]

AFAIUI modern OSes understand SSD drives and don't do unnecessary data shuffling such as disk optimisation. An early OS, assuming you can get the SSD to work, would "use up" the SSD quicker.

 

[Vipersan]

This latest multiboot idea on such a large hard drive may be dead in the water already ..
So easy to forget the bios limitations ..
I suspect this mobos bios limits and ide controler have limited me.
so unless there was ever a bios update (doubtful) ..then I am restricted ..
I'm gonna take a look in the bios to see if there is LBA enabling/support ..
If not ..
I'm somewhat stuffed..

 

[2cvbloke]

I'm somewhat stuffed..

Don't forget the PCI IDE controller idea I mentioned previously...

After all, my Olivetti, limited to about 2 or 3GB HDD sizes has a 20GB fitted (and have used a 40GB too) thanks to a PCI IDE controller...

 

[Vipersan]

Don't forget the PCI IDE controller idea I mentioned previously...

After all, my Olivetti, limited to about 2 or 3GB HDD sizes has a 20GB fitted (and have used a 40GB too) thanks to a PCI IDE controller...

Still on order but not received it yet..
Given up searching for a more recent bios for my jetway mobo ..
rare as rocking horse kaka ..
lol

 

[Vipersan]

So ..isn't DAT fun ?
Another reason to have multiple OS..
I have now intstalled the DDS4 dat tape reader/writer in Chameleon..
I have 10 DDS4 dat tapes bought used from fleabay for a fiver..
I have Backup Exec desktop installed bought from the USA (version 5)
This I can only instal on 95 or 98SE ..and maybe NT4 ..?
but no way can this be installed on 2000 or XP ..
simply not supported ..
Most folk would use DAT tape for system backup in a PC ..
Not what I want it for ..
I want to 'choose' what I backup ..
files ..software media etc ..
This is possible with the desktop version ..but dropped in later versions of Backup Exec .
So ..I use it in 98SE.
So far so good..until Oh Oh ..i popped in one of the DDS4 tapes and tried to erase it and re-use..
My version of backup exec refused with an illegal operation message ..
tried another tape ..same message..
the DDS3 tapes I already had wer obviosly made with the same version 5 ..and these I can restore or erase as needed .
So ..how to use these DDS4 tapes I aquired..?
I read there is an erase option in 'windows backup' ..
a feature not included in windows 98SE ..
So tried booting 2000 ...
nope ..that didn't work either ..
Booted XPpro ..
entered Backup ...selected Erase ..and ..success ..
I then re installed 98SE ..
ran up BE desktop ..and popped in the DDS4 tape ..
Now I can re-format and use it ..
So ..in conclusion ..
the tapes can only be erased using the OS version on which they were made ?
but at least I have a method now of re-using these 40gb tapes.
my brain hurts ..
lol
what I need is a stand alone erase app for Sony DAT drives that can be installed in win98SE ..
yeah right ..and a big bag of gold ....