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I have an old 486SX computer. It has a 486SX INTEL processor on a MICRONICS Computers mother board with old PhoenixBIOS Version 1.03.

ProbleM:

The old Quantum Prodrive LPS 170MB IDE hard drive stopped working (Weird loud noises - sytem does not Boot as usual). The operating system on the drive was DOS 6.22

I got hold of an 80GB Maxtor DiamondMax PLUS 9 ATA/133 HDD. I partitioned it to one 2GB partion and installed DOS on the created partition. This was done on another computer.

When I connected the 80GB HDD to the 486SX I get "Invalid configuration" message from the PhoenixBIOS.

I have tried all the HDD setting options in the BIOS and still when rebooting I get the "Invalid configuration" message.
It does not Boot to the DOS prompt.

Is the 80GBMaxtor incompatible with the PheonixBIOS? Can you please help.

Thank you.

Regards

JohanWhen you work with older ide drives like you are. Also with DOS remember not all bios's will detect the the drive in the same way. For DOS to boot the settings need to match. So TRY the 80gb drive in the 486 and SELECT a drive number INSTEAD of setting to auto detect. Type 14 would be a GOOD start. Also write the number down as the bios is inclined to default to auto if the cmos is reset.

Here is the details for jumpering your drive https://www.seagate.com/au/en/support/kb/diamondmax-plus-9-ultra-dma-133-jumper-chs-and-install-guide-181371en/

There is a limitation as you can see from this page https://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Large-Disk-HOWTO-4.html

BIOS Int 13 - the 8.5 GB limit
At most 1024 cylinders (numbered 0-1023), 256 heads (numbered 0-255), 63 sectors/track (numbered 1-63) for a maximum total capacity of 8455716864 bytes (8.5 GB). This is a serious limitation today. It means that DOS cannot use present day large disks.

There are other options instead of using a Hard drive like an IDE to compact flash card and then using an old compact flash card of say 512mb.
Do you understand that a 486 SX computer has almost no piratical value?
Is this for a museum?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80486SX
Quote

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a modified Intel 486DX microprocessor with its floating-point unit (FPU) disabled. It was intended as a lower-cost CPU for use in low-end systems.
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