issues with replacement 40 GB hard drive in Win Me
 

I just replaced an ailing 4 GB HD in my old laptop running Win Me with a
new 40 GB drive. I'm having two issues: 1) Only 7.8 GB is being used of
the 40 GB available (I did select to allow large hard disk support
during Me installation) and 2) Even though I seem to shut down correctly
(selecting shutdown from the Me menu), when it reboots, I keep getting
improper shutdown detected and it wants to scan the drive. How can I
resolve these issues? Thank you!

issues with replacement 40 GB hard drive in Win Me
 

William Bell wrote:

1) Only 7.8 GB is being used of the 40 GB available

That is a BIOS issue. Your computer is so old that the bios is only
aware of drive configurations up to 1024 tracks, 255 sides, 63 sectors
per track. That adds up to 7.84 gb as the maximum hard drive size the
BIOS can access.

Your only hope to overcome that is if there is a BIOS update for your
computer.


2) Even though I seem to shut down correctly (selecting shutdown from
the Me menu), when it reboots, I keep getting improper shutdown
detected

ME apparently had a shut-down bug that may not have been ever fixed, but
this seems to have caused a black screen and possibly the system hangs
at shutdown instead of actually shutting down.

See if the info in these 2 links are useful for your problem:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...down-correctly

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ard-disk-error

When your system restarts and asks you to scan the drive, and for those
times you say YES and let it scan, does it ever find a problem?

issues with replacement 40 GB hard drive in Win Me
 

On 02/01/2017 08:27 AM, 98 Guy wrote:



Your only hope to overcome that is if there is a BIOS update for your
computer.


Unfortunately, no BIOS update available beyond the one I have. I was
thinking of trying something like gParted and therefore handling the
issue outside of Win in DOS, or some type of drive overlay software I
was reading about.



2) Even though I seem to shut down correctly (selecting shutdown from
the Me menu), when it reboots, I keep getting improper shutdown
detected

ME apparently had a shut-down bug that may not have been ever fixed, but
this seems to have caused a black screen and possibly the system hangs
at shutdown instead of actually shutting down.

See if the info in these 2 links are useful for your problem:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...down-correctly

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...ard-disk-error

When your system restarts and asks you to scan the drive, and for those
times you say YES and let it scan, does it ever find a problem?


I actually solved this on my own, but thanks for the suggestions. It
seems that if I do a restart as opposed to an actual shutdown, then I
get the scandisk screen. Not sure why, but that's what's happening. As
long as I shutdown completely and then restart, I don't get the
scandisk. And when I did let the scandisk complete, it did not find
anything wrong.

issues with replacement 40 GB hard drive in Win Me
 

On Wednesday, February 1, 2017 at 9:01:52 AM UTC-7, William Bell wrote:
On 02/01/2017 08:27 AM, 98 Guy wrote:



Your only hope to overcome that is if there is a BIOS update for your
computer.


Unfortunately, no BIOS update available beyond the one I have. I was
thinking of trying something like gParted and therefore handling the
issue outside of Win in DOS, or some type of drive overlay software I
was reading about.

Officially there won't be a solution for some BIOS code, but there are a few nuts out there rewriting old BIOS code knocking these types of bugs down flat. If you'll give your system make and model perhaps I can find those pages again and you may have an unofficial BIOS update already to download. I'll see what info I've got stored away and get back here if I find something relevant.

Lacking fixed BIOS code, all I had to suggest was drive overlay software, but I don't have a software name suggestion going down that road at all, sorry.

issues with replacement 40 GB hard drive in Win Me
 

Lee wrote:

a BIOS update for your computer.

Unfortunately, no BIOS update available

there are a few nuts out there rewriting old BIOS code

Lacking fixed BIOS all I had to suggest was drive overlay software

Seriously people.

Think about it.

We're talking about a laptop circa 1999 or 2000. Probably earlier
because this 8 gb drive limitation is really old - like 1995 - 1997.

This laptop is a POS from a hardware pov. The screen will be ****.
Resolution will be ****.

The battery is flat dead. It will need to be plugged in all the time.

It has no wifi. It probably doesn't even have ethernet port.

So you stick a 40 gb drive in it, and can use only 8 gb. And this is
the main point: What are you going to do with an ancient POS laptop
that you're going to need more than 8 gb of hard drive space?

You going to be editing video with it?

Autocad? Graphic design?

I don't think so.

If you like Win-ME, there is much better hardware (motherboards)
available on ebay where you can build a decent desktop PC and connect
tera-byte hard drives no problem.

Why people get fixated on ancient, lame hardware is a mystery.

issues with replacement 40 GB hard drive in Win Me
 

98 Guy wrote:

Why people get fixated on ancient, lame hardware is a mystery.

You say that in a group dedicated to an OS that's more than 18 years old.

--
Linus Torvalds jokes about world domination, but Bill Gates *means* it.
-- Eric S. Raymond

(Good sigmonster. Have a cookie.)

issues with replacement 40 GB hard drive in Win Me
 

Auric__ wrote:

98 Guy wrote:

Why people get fixated on ancient, lame hardware is a mystery.

You say that in a group dedicated to an OS that's more than 18 years old.

As an aside, sometimes making "ancient, lame hardware" usable is fun. I'd
love to get my hands on an old VAX.

--
Just be quiet while we treat you.
We won't ask, please don't tell.

issues with replacement 40 GB hard drive in Win Me
 

On Thu, 02 Feb 2017 03:10:10 -0000, 98 Guy wrote:
[]

We're talking about a laptop circa 1999 or 2000. Probably earlier
because this 8 gb drive limitation is really old - like 1995 - 1997.

This laptop is a POS from a hardware pov. The screen will be ****.
Resolution will be ****.
[]

Why people get fixated on ancient, lame hardware is a mystery.

What about ancient s/w then Mr 98 Guy??!!

--
Bah, and indeed, Humbug

issues with replacement 40 GB hard drive in Win Me
 

On 02/02/2017 03:10 AM, Auric__ wrote:
98 Guy wrote:

Why people get fixated on ancient, lame hardware is a mystery.

You say that in a group dedicated to an OS that's more than 18 years old.


That's what I was about to say, sheesh. I noticed this in other threads
while I was researching before posting. Tends to try helping at first
and then-- bam-- what the f do you want to do this for. Really nice way
to keep people wanting to come back to the group.

Just for the record, I had been using this old laptop with some ancient
software (no longer available) to do some data logging. I *do* have
several modern laptops and PC's with Win 7 and higher, but when the
Toshiba Satellite 490's hard drive went out and I replaced it, I was
having the initial issues I posted. I certainly don't want to dedicate
one of my modern laptops for the data logging task if I can keep the old
one going and a job it has done for the past 8 years. So that's the
reason, 98 Guy, I wanted to get it going again. Originally it had like
a 4 GB HD, but I had researched this group and came across a post where
some cheap, Chinese Hitachi HD were available so I ordered one. Problem
was that the laptop would only recognize the first 7.? GB and not the
rest. It's certainly not essential to be able to use the rest as the
former drive had done fine all these years, but it would have been nice
to be able to utilize the drive.

Will

issues with replacement 40 GB hard drive in Win Me
 

On 02/01/2017 08:34 PM, Lee wrote:


Officially there won't be a solution for some BIOS code, but there are a few nuts out there rewriting old BIOS code knocking these types of bugs down flat. If you'll give your system make and model perhaps I can find those pages again and you may have an unofficial BIOS update already to download. I'll see what info I've got stored away and get back here if I find something relevant.

Lacking fixed BIOS code, all I had to suggest was drive overlay software, but I don't have a software name suggestion going down that road at all, sorry.


Ok, Lee, thanks. It's a Toshiba Satellite 490XCDT / 4.0 model number
PRI1270U and part # PRI1270U-T2C. If you can find a BIOS rewrite that
would work, that would be great!

Will