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From: sigma@jec302.its.rpi.edu (Kevin J Martin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: HD in blue PC?
Message-ID: <+L{=52B@rpi.edu>
Date: 22 Mar 91 17:19:01 GMT
References: <5417@umbc3.UMBC.EDU> <13520003@hpfcmgw.HP.COM> <10137@hub.ucsb.edu>
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Nntp-Posting-Host: jec302.its.rpi.edu

6600dadg@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (King of Sunset Town) writes:
>>>In comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc, battle@umbc4.umbc.edu (Rick) writes:
>>>
>>>    I hava an original blue PC with 2 360k floppys.  I want to
>>>    remove one floppy and add a HD, ie. ST225.  will the bios support
>>>    such a drive?  The date on the bios is 1982.  
>>>
>>>    Can anybody shed some light on this?   Thanks.....

>No way.  You need a BIOS upgrade.  How do I know?  I did it, too.
>Where can you get an IBM BIOS upgrade?  You can't.  You have to buy
>a third party BIOS chip (ie Phoenix).  They work fine, though.

Don't be so hasty.  If the ROMs are dated October 27, 1982, they're the
upgrade which allowed 640K ram in the original PC.  I have run RLL drives
with NO problems on such a machine, using the Western Digital 27X 8-bit
controller.  ROMs of that date or later DO allow for hard drives, and the
controller's BIOS takes care of the rest of the work.

You don't have to worry about drive types or anything, of course, since
it's a less-than-AT machine.  So don't spend sixty bucks or so on a new
BIOS until you're sure it won't work.  And I believe it can work.

-- 
Kevin Martin
sigma@rpi.edu