PC eye

Probably in 1999 since that's about the time frame there. The P3s started seeing ads back in 1995. Someone posted an ad on youtube if you can speak the language at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5TAih0jn8o but were first seen in 1992-93.

I remember seeing several of those ads mentioning PIIIs in IBM and other makes then. Intel finally solved one problem just to get the 733 and 800 models out in large quantity during early 2000. http://www.zen26266.zen.co.uk/P3-750-800.htm

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SirKenin

The P3 was released in 1998. I know. I bought a P3-500 the week they came out (for the low, low price of $1500 for the processor).

hackapelite

P3 Coppermines (First P3's able to reach 866Mhz) were released in the last quarter of 1999 - I have 2 of them oldies...

For that old machine, I wouldn't even bother getting a new HD. I have no clues of what you use your computer for - but 20GB should do fine.

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nyhk

If you have a system that will only do 28-bit LBA, then it is very doubtful that multiple partitions will help, if that is what you're saying

PC eye

At one time you could download a bios bypass program http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/over_DDO.htm in order to slip right past the limitation imposed by older systems. http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/index.htm

Regarding some of the old tools like EZ-Bios being a drive overlay to bypass the bios entirely for seeing a single working primary,

"On some motherboards, the bios is restrictive in letting you chose settings for your hard drive. IE: multi sector transfers and Logical block addressing. Both of wich increases overall harddrive performance in all versions of windows.
To Overcome this and enable these settings you can install EZ-BIOS on your hard drives via a simple little boot utility that you can get from either Maxtor or Western digital. " http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com.../371/1/EZ-BIOS

I had 98SE running on a single primary first with a 120gb then later a 250gb ide drive simply by seeing the overlay by that name used. Ez-BIOS is found at http://www.tests-it.com/ezbios.htm

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nyhk

I just wondered about the fix you mentioned with multiple partitions

PC eye

When you are stuck with a size limitation for partitions and want a larger drive on an older system your last option to see the full amount of increased drive space available is to create a second and even third partiton within the size limits you are confined to. Those will then appear as separate logical drives while Windows would be installed on the first allowing room for storage and backing things up on the one or more additional partitions.

With only one drive installed it's common practice to see a second one created for storing files there in case the primary ends up needing to be reformatted in case of a virus or some other reason like upgrade of OS. On a large drive with small partitions you can also dual boot Windows with Linux or another OS.

For seeing one single primary where the bios is the problem you then use a bios bypass utility like EZ-Bios. That's been around for a long time now.

When going to install a 250gb drive on an old custom case that certainly came in handy since the bios only allowed upto about 8gb at the time. Later on the next build the WD drive tool DrFat32 allowed 98SE to see the full use of the 250gb drive since the old version was Fat based and the updated fdiak drive tool was limited to 74gb.

Maxtor also offer a tool for their old Quantum drives for allowing full access when the bios on the board lacked the necessary LBA support. When without these tools however what do you do? either see one small primary leaving the rest of a drive unallocated or create multiple small partitions in order to see the entire drive available.

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