kleonard@gvlv1.gvl.unisys.com (Ken Leonard) (07/17/90)
I am about to acquire a new system, a 386SX clone. It will be running DOS4.01 and WINDOWS3.0. It will be one of two brands (tbd in the next 2 or 3 days): AUSTIN or ZEOS. -- The key question(s) center on the type (and size) of hard disk: either MFM or IDE, 70 to 80 MB. It _will_not_ be RLL. I can't afford SCSI or ESDI. -- So... With DOS4, I _think_ I don't need a disk manager (e.g. SpeedStor or DiskManager) to do _any_or_whatever_ partitioning I may feel like doing. But DOS brings _no_ disk diagnostics, no way to assure confidence in the media over a long period of time (I think). ... But I would like to have a higher confidence level, by having decent and straightforward and not-heavily-masked disk-surface diagnostics. So is a disk manager the way to go? Is a disk manager even relevant with an IDE drive? ... Is there a disk manager that is safe with WIN3? Or a mode of running WIN3 (e.g. a startup or .ini switch) that makes it safe without killing performance? I have an application I occasionally run here at work (the new system will be at home) that _requires_ virthdirq=NO, which absolutely _trashes_ disk performance under WIN386/2.11. ... How many partitions will DOS4 FDISK let me have? And does it refrain from making stupid assumptions about what the partitions are or must be? I may end up running a UN*X-like partition, which will need to be made bootable as an alternative to DOS4. Can I depend on DOS4 FDISK to not screw-up the partition table? ... Am I even asking the right questions? Hey, Col. Custer, What am I Doing here? ----------------- thanx and regardz, Ken
lestat@nontech.Berkeley.EDU (David Gonzalez-Nieves) (07/18/90)
In article <813@gvlv2.GVL.Unisys.COM> kleonard@gvlv1.UUCP (Ken Leonard) writes: > >I am about to acquire a new system, a 386SX clone. It will be running >DOS4.01 and WINDOWS3.0. It will be one of two brands (tbd in the next 2 or >3 days): AUSTIN or ZEOS. In article <1559@dfsun1.electro.swri.edu> jackson@dfsun1.electro.swri.edu (Keith Jackson) answers: >Well, if you really want a 386SX (can't wait to save for a true 386? tsk, >tsk!) I wouldn't recommend Austin. I've got one of their 286's and I've >had nothing but trouble with it. The first month I took it in _THREE_ >times because of bad memory boards (I found out later that one of the times... I bought an AUSTIN 386SX about 6 months ago and, I haven't had any kind of problems with it whatsoever. I consider it to be an excellent system well built and at least up to now, reliable. The only thing not so nice about it is that since they use SIMMs for memory, if one chip goes down, you loose the whole memory bank (256K or 1MEG). Also the IDE hard disk and interface work really nice but, they are not as common as MFM ST506 or ESDI, SCSI. Another thing If you decide to buy one of this systems and are going to buy VGA monitor, buy one with at least 800x600 resolution. ------------------------------------------------- David Gonzalez lestat@ctt.bellcore.com Bellcore RRC 1M207S 444 Hoes Lane Piscatway, NJ 08854 VOICE (201) 699-6387 ------------------------------------------------- DISCLAIMER: Bellcore is not responsible for anything I say, write or think if they can be sued. I am not resposible for anything I say, write or even thing if I can be su ed. (Doesn't have any logic!!!)