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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: <707@nicmad.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 25-May-86 01:18:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: nicmad.707
Posted: Sun May 25 01:18:49 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 27-May-86 06:03:26 EDT
References: <846@mhuxt.UUCP> <692@nicmad.UUCP> <4948@ut-sally.UUCP> <704@nicmad.UUCP> <4992@ut-sally.UUCP>
Reply-To: brown@nicmad.UUCP (Mr. Video)
Organization: Nicolet Instrument Corp. Madison WI
Lines: 45

In article <4992@ut-sally.UUCP> nather@ut-sally.UUCP (Ed Nather) writes:
>In article <704@nicmad.UUCP>, brown@nicmad.UUCP writes:
>> 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.
>
>Sorry, but the computer I'm using to answer this note has a 20MB Seagate
>disk with a single PC-DOS partition 20 MB in size.  It was formatted by and
>is running PC-DOS 2.1.  I'm glad I didn't know better, or I might never
>have tried to use it this way.  I did no butchery of any kind on the drive.
>The only ugly side effect is that the minimum file size is 8 KB instead of
>the 4 KB on a 10 MB disk.

Great!  In that same afore mentioned posting, I also included references
to the PC-DOS 3.10 Tech. Ref. Manual.  You know, it didn't come right out
and say that 2.10 wouldn't work with 20MB drives, just that 12-bit FAT
table entries are used with 2.10.  It just says that 16-bit FATs are used
for 20MB and up, with PC-DOS 3.00 and up.  The PC TECH JOURNAL also did not
come right out and give the combinations of DOS and hard disk size.

But, the netter brings up a little point.  With 20MB hard disks and up,
one should probably use PC-DOS 3.10 (or up).  Why, because you then stay
away from the space hogging 8K clusters.  You get 2K clusters with 3.10.
Depending on file size, one could get up to 4 times the space back.  Even
25-50% would be great.

So, all of this proves two things:
	1. IBM Tech Reference Manuals don't always tell you things.  One
	   must read between the lines all the time.
	2. The original poster with the DOS 2.10 problem has a problem.

I did say in another posting that maybe the jumpers may be set wrong on
the controller.  Other than the controller being bad, that seems to be
the only thing left, as DOS has been ruled out.

[I love it when I make mistakes.  It sure brings out the rest of you,
which in the end may get the original poster the answer that is needed]
-- 

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Mr. Video      seismo!uwvax!nicmad!brown
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