Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!caip!seismo!uwvax!astroatc!nicmad!brown
From: brown@nicmad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: IBM PC/XT UPGRADE
Message-ID: <704@nicmad.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 23-May-86 13:03:32 EDT
Article-I.D.: nicmad.704
Posted: Fri May 23 13:03:32 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 25-May-86 17:42:04 EDT
References: <846@mhuxt.UUCP> <692@nicmad.UUCP> <4948@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: brown@nicmad.UUCP (Mr. Video)
Organization: Nicolet Instrument Corp. Madison WI
Lines: 39

In article <4948@ut-sally.UUCP> nather@ut-sally.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes:
>In article <692@nicmad.UUCP>, brown@nicmad.UUCP writes:
>> Help is in the form of PC-DOS 3.1.  If my memory serves me correctly,
>> PC-DOS 2.1 will only 'see' 10 MB hard disks.
>
>Not so.  We run 20 MB disks under DOS 2.1 with no problems, other than
>those caused by the 12-bit FAT pointer which limits the minimum size of a
>file to 8K bytes.  In this regard (and a few others) DOS 3.1 is better:
>a minimum file size of 2K is standard.  The DOS version is not your
>problem, however.  I really don't know what is.  I've never seen the
>symptom.

I have to disagree.  I quote the following from the PC-DOS 3.10 Tech Ref Man:

	The FAT consists of a 12-bit entry (1.5 bytes) for each
	cluster on the disk or a 16-bit entry (2 bytes) when a
	fixed disk has more than 20740 sectors as in the case
	for fixed disks larger than 10M bytes.

Also:

	16-bit FATs are for use with DOS versions 3.00 and 3.10.

The only way you can have PC-DOS 2.10 run 20MB hard drives is if:
	1. You run partitioned drives with two 10MB partitions or
	2. You butchered the drive to fool DOS
As PC-DOS 2.10 stands, it is not able to format 20MB hard drives as 20MB.

As another reference see the article "Finding Disk Parameters" in the
May 1986 issue of PC TECH JOURNAL.

So, in conclusion, the original poster still needs PC-DOS 3.10 or 3.20.
-- 

              ihnp4------\
            harvard-\     \
Mr. Video      seismo!uwvax!nicmad!brown
              topaz-/     /
             decvax------/