Old Tosh, new hard disk

[Grimner]

Had a Toshiba 440 CDT thrown after me the other day. Had a look at it and started thinking Linux
Messed around with the small distros like Knoppix, Slax and Peanut. They would all run in some way - but I need more cuddling. Still great things. Recommend Knoppix as your save-the-files-tool.

So I got a new harddisk (1.4 Gb was quite something once upon a time):

The Seagate Momentus 20 Gb

Getting the physical part in place was perfectly straight forward. Easier than with your desktop computer.

But: the BIOS did not want to recognize the nice new drive. "No HDD". Ever seen the old Toshiba BIOS? Not much you can do in there - you rather want to get out asap.

Remembering the old BIOS limitations on drive sizes, I feared the worst, but hunted down the lastest BIOS - from 1998...
No luck. So just for fun I let Red Hat 9 spin it's CD. Well, well, after telling it how I wanted my partitions - it was installing to hda! Once finished installing (it takes a little time on a P133), reboot - and full stop at the BIOS again.

Started reading up on old hard disk lore. Depressing reading. On the other hand, I found some retailers who spesifically wanted to sell me various parts for the 440CDT - including 30 Gb disks...

Since www.seagate.com isn't responding to me, I finally took a good look at the disk itself - it had been sitting so smugly inside it's little slot all the time.
Hmm, small jumper. Set to "Cable Select" from Seagate. Well, what if we try removing the jumper telling it to be Master?

So now all is where it should be and I get to ponder all the old hardware in this box - and maybe connecting some more new shiny toys

Oh, yes, the Seagate is quite nice: lighter than the old one by some 10 grams, dead quiet and plenty fast. I'll bet it even use less juice :wine

 

[arsbanned]

Maybe a disk overlay would allow you to work around the BIOS limitations? One should be available at the Seagate Site. A search of the Toshiba support docs might have told you the drive limitations of that unit.

 

[jschuk]

Originally posted by: Grimner
But: the BIOS did not want to recognize the nice new drive. "No HDD". Ever seen the old Toshiba BIOS? Not much you can do in there - you rather want to get out asap.

Yeah it pretty much looks the same as the new machines. Not many laptops have useful features in the BIOS.

Hmm, small jumper. Set to "Cable Select" from Seagate. Well, what if we try removing the jumper telling it to be Master?

So now all is where it should be and I get to ponder all the old hardware in this box - and maybe connecting some more new shiny toys

Oh, yes, the Seagate is quite nice: lighter than the old one by some 10 grams, dead quiet and plenty fast. I'll bet it even use less juice :wine

Hopefully the new drive won't become dead/quiet like the old drive. The 440 was one of the last to use the Seagate 1.4GB and man did those run hot and consequently, die. All 15V Toshiba's require the HDD to be set to Master (I haven't played with that settings for 19V Toshiba's).
If you are feeling adventurous, then look at this site. It is all in Japanese, but pictures say a thousand words (plus you can read the numbers).

 

[suklee]

Maybe a disk overlay would allow you to work around the BIOS limitations? One should be available at the Seagate Site. A search of the Toshiba support docs might have told you the drive limitations of that unit.

I just happened to install the same model (ST92011A right?) in my old Acer TravelMate 313T.. had to apply a DDO with DiscWizard to be able to utilize the entire 20GB. That took quite some effort but its now partitioned into 8g and 12g drives. Of course I cant see the drive being filled up!

 

[jschuk]

Originally posted by: Kai920
I just happened to install the same model (ST92011A right?) in my old Acer TravelMate 313T.. had to apply a DDO with DiscWizard to be able to utilize the entire 20GB. That took quite some effort but its now partitioned into 8g and 12g drives. Of course I cant see the drive being filled up!

I have put 10GB and 12GB drives into units that would only see them as 8GB with a startup disk. What I did was load up a HDD smaller than 8GB and then ghost it over to the >8GB HDD. Doing this allowed me to install a >8GB without any overlay software or partitions. I have performed this on a 425CDT, 430CDS, and I think a 440CDT or 460CDT.

 

[Grimner]

Thanks for the replies:

arsbanned & kai920
DDO looked nice, only the tools (DiscWizard) did not find the drive either.
And Toshiba docs are very nice. They will tell you everything they think you need about the box in front of you, but they will give you NO reason for wanting to open it up ever. After all this was a business machine - it was never meant to fall in the hands of the likes of us

jshuck
BIOS - What? Not even a paperclip yet? Well, it does the job well enough. Now that you mention it, the T3100 in the basement has the same basic BIOS layout. But it does run, even if it didn't make it to the new millenium
Overclock - Excellent site! Lots of hazzle for a 33 Mhz jump... but well, maybe in a rainy week. 133 really is borderline today.
Old disk - yes, over time the whole front became warm and the sound even just spinning... well. This one is quiet and cool.


The point of my little tale really is the old "Check the cable..." or "Check the jumper..."
Ah, well, now I know a little more about old laptops and their funny habits.