From: Robert George (george_at_cs.nps.navy.mil)
Date: Thu Jan 05 1995 - 14:59:51 EST
> I have tried to enable the 32 bit access under windows but I get an error
> when I try to load windows. I have an 810MB HD that is partitioned into a
> 400 and a 372 MB volumes. I seem to recall something about sector size
> being a problem, could someone tell me what I need to do to get this to work.
Gary,
I went through this headache back in August. The Western Digital
drivers which provide the 32-bit disk access were written before enhanced
IDE, but you need EIDE to support hard drives with capacities greater that
~520MB.
The only way I was able to get 32-bit disk access to work with EIDE
dives on the ThinkPad was to get the *old* "FASTDISK" drivers from Western
Digital. The new FASTDISK drivers _only_ support Western Digital drives like
the Caviar. The old FASTDISK drivers are available at cica, and replace the
wdctrl.386 driver in Windows which supplies the 32-bit disk access.
BTW, 32-bit disk access turns out not to be a big performance advantage.
Here's an excerpt from a conversation with Western Digital tech support:
"RJ Smith, Western Digital" <smith_r_at_a1.wdc.com> writes:
>> [...] So my question is do I get any advantages from the Fastdisk
divers?r
>
>The WD FastDisk WDCDRV.386 was designed to circumvent the WDCTRL
>limitation of 1,023 cylinders. WDCDRV.386, like WDCTRL, provides
>only a modest increase in performance over the BIOS Int 13h code:
>about 6%.
>
>Using WDCDRV.386 on any drive with less than 1,023 cylinders is
>not necessary.
Robert
--| Robert George | Army Research Laboratory | | robertg_at_assb01.arl.mil | AMSRL-SS-IC | | Voice: (408) 656-3316 | 2800 Powder Mill Road | | Fax: (408) 656-2814 | Adelphi, MD 20783-1197 |
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