PC Advice - Putting it Together

[JaXanim]

@Holley

Yes, it's full alright. The Maxtor model number identifies it as 850Mb and I have around 10Mb to spare. Not much use, eh!

I fitted another HD (Ex Amiga) jumpered as slave on the Channel 1 IDE cable. Because of physical restrictions, I have to attach this slave to the first connector from the IDE interface. Will this work with PCs? The reason I ask is 'cos I couldn't see the drive in the device listing in 'My Computer' after apparently setting it up using the CMOS IDE Hard Disks menu.

I then made it a slave to the CDRom on Channel 2 and put it on the furthermost connector. Same result.

How do I get the system to 'see' the new drive so I can FAT32 format it?

I'll tell you one thing for sure. Windows is a real PITA!

Cheers,

JaX

[Holley]

Gotta partition it before windows will pick it up (unlike Amigas it won't list anything at all if it's not the right kinda partition).

Open a dos box and type 'fdisk'

You get asked if you want large disk support (Yes ;-)), you then get a text menu.  1st thing is to pick the second drive (option 5 IIRC), then delete any 'non-windows' partitions, and create a new one - should be self-explanatory, but if in doubt close the dos box (changes are only saved when the program quits) and ask for help.

When creating a Fat32 partition up to 8Gb has a cluster size of 4k, over is 8 (so stick with 8Gb partitions if you want to keep a library of icons, lol).

After doing that you can reboot and format the new disk, move as much as possible to the new partition as Windows likes loads of swap space ;-) 10Mb will make it crawl!

[JaXanim]

@Holley

Many thanks for your advice. I guess I'll get the hang of this thing before long, but what a kerfuffle!

I'll let it rest for now, it's well past midnite and I'm just sick of hearing those bloody beeps!

More later no doubt!

Cheers,

JaX

[DethKnight]

Yes, it's full alright. The Maxtor model number identifies it as 850Mb and I have around 10Mb to spare. Not much use, eh!

I fitted another HD (Ex Amiga) jumpered as slave on the Channel 1 IDE cable.

If it were myself, (which it was yesterday), I (would & did) just Norton Ghost from the small drive to the large drive, then pitch/recycle the small drive.

[JaXanim]

Finally getting somewhere!

I managed to set up a slave drive to run Lotus SmartSuite and leave the old C: just for the Win98 system and misc stuff I've yet to explore.

The only problem was, out of three spare HDs (a 17Gb, a 4.3Gb and a tidgy 256Mb, only the latter would show up under the BIOS-CMOS/Detect IDE Devices gizmo. The bigger drives definitely had some bad sectors and the PC wouldn't have any of 'em.

So, SmartSuite is fully installed on the 250Mb drive, half filling it. However, that should leave enough for WaveGuide atm.

The frustrating thing now is the use of drive C: for temporary stuff. I'm still getting low space warnings when editing my stuff on the other drive.

Is there a way to use the other drive for the temporary stuff?

Oh, and the graphics card will only let me have 16 colours. I guess it's a pretty basic model, but I'd have expected a little bit more, colour-wise. (?)

Cheers,

JaX

[graffias79]

Hmm either that card is from 1989 or you just need some video drivers. :-)

-Jamie

[JaXanim]

@graffias79

It's a 3D Labs Inc. AGP card dated 1999. It has the number PCB125B1 if that means anything to you. I set the CMOS/Init Video setting to AGP, but whether it's set to AGP or 'PCI Slot' makes no difference to the screen resolution or the number of colours.

This leads me to another query about Windows. Why are the menu frames larger than the screen? I have to scroll everything around to see what's going on. There doesn't seem to be anything related to increasing the screen resolution. The default setting of 680x420 pixels (or something like that) can't be changed.

Do I need a better video card?

Cheers,

JaX

[gizz72]

@JaXanim

Do I need a better video card?

Nope, just the correct driver will do, if it's still supported.

You just need to determine your model number of your video
card. If it's built into the mobo, look for it on the chip or usually found in the mobo manual that shoul come with it.
If not, check the card if such model is etch on it.
If you're still not sure of the model, then try to get a new agp card with a cd driver bundled with.

as soon as you found it, check this site if
it's still available.

 Everything else fails, still get a new AGP card. If it's built in. Try to Disable it under CMOS(usually).Hope that helps. :-D

Good day to all Amigans! :-D

[graffias79]

Yes 3DLabs has a lot of previous generation cards.  Check what's written on the video card's main chip.  Maybe it's a Permedia 2?  Something like that should be listed on the chip.  Then check the site link in gizz72's post.  Believe me you wont get out of 4-bit vesa mode without a driver!  Hope that helps!

-Jamie

[spirantho]

Given that this was going to an Amiga user I figured it right that I should send him a Permedia II card - given that was the last chip used in a dedicated Amiga graphics card (the CVPPC)! It can do 1600x1200 in 24 bit AFAIK, though I can't remember how much memory is on it.

You need the drivers for the card, though, just like any PC graphics card:
http://www.3dlabs.com/support/drivers/permedia_drivers.htm
should do the trick.
Once the drivers are installed, you'll be able to change the desktop size and screen resolution - either go into the Control Panel and open Display or else right click on the Windoze background when there's no windows open, and select Properties.. that has the same effect.

As for the temporary space, you need to tell windows to use the D: drive for swap space. It's in the Control Panel somewhere, and it's not where you'd expect, so do a Google search for it. It's in the hardware performance section or something daft!

[JaXanim]

All hail Spirantho!

Provider of my PeeCee makings.
Behold, P2-400/RAM-alot/Sound'n'Vision'n'Mobo to boot.
Win98 plugged and played! Epson printer prints!

All hail Spirantho!
Saviour of the WaveGuide texts!

JaXimus WavGydimus Maximus

[Holley]

Glad to hear it's all working now!  And respect to Spirantho's generous nature :-)

[JaXanim]

@Holley

It's....almost fully working.

I'm still bemused by the video. I've got the 3D Labs/Permedia II card in the AGP slot, but I get only 16 colour VGA output. I can't get the system to see the card.

I've downloaded the drivers as recommended by Spirantho and tried to get the system to accept them, but it insists in saying the best VGA driver is in use for the 'Standard VGA adapter'.

Is there a VGA switcher-offer somewhere? I've set the Init Video to VGA in the BIOS/CMOS interface (was ISA-slot), but I can't get any better output.

The system which searches for new hardware doesn't detect the card at all. It sees the sound card and the new mouse and the alternative keyboard, but not the 3D Labs card. Could it be faulty?

Cheers,

JaX

PS: Oh, and atm all this stuff is hanging inside and outside the old Packaged Hell desktop case. The new ATX power box is too big to fit where it should and the second HD is dangling on the end of the cable insulated from the rest with a copy of the TurboPrint manual. Other than that, it's not so far off.

[Holley]

a new case can be got for £20 ;-)

Basically with 'a' driver installed (ie. the default 4-bit VGA one) it won't pick up that an updated one is needed.  You can go into device manager (one of the tabs under 'system' in the control panel), find the display adaptor, go into it's properties, and click on 'update driver'.  The other thing is to check for in an auto-setup program (setup.exe) in the drivers you downloaded, which will do the updating for you - I know NVidia and ATI drivers will only install that way most of the time!

[JaXanim]

@Holley

After a fifteen minute scout around, the Add Hardware Wizard doesn't actually see the 3D Labs/Permedia card, that's what I don't understand.

The only way to get any signal to the monitor is via the graphics card, yet the system says it's running a 'Standard VGA Adapter'.

There appears to be a 3D Labs/Permedia driver on the Win98 CDRom, but it says this isn't specifically written for VGA the adapter I'm using and advises against using it. In fact it doesn't appear to want to use anything but the Standard VGA adapter driver.

I assume running the standard VGA driver will simply pass a 16-colour video signal through the card? That's what seems to be happening and there appears to be no clear way of changing it. Running the driver update system simply gives me the one I have already.

Any ideas?

JaX

[Holley]

ok, first off, check the driver you downloaded and see if it has a file called 'setup.exe' in it - if so run that and it should update.  If not then the best thing to do is what I said before (not the 'add new hardware' bit!!) - go to 'System' in the Control Panel, go to the 'Device manager' tab, find 'Standard VGA Display' under display adaptors, go into it's properties, click on 'Update Driver', when it gives you the list of drivers click on 'Have Disk' and point it at the driver you downloaded, if it doesn't like that then you probably have a driver for a different version of Windows or something ...

(note that if it's an achive you'll have to uncompress it first).