The featured presentation for the evening was a "how-to" primer on upgrading one's hard disk drive presented by Dennis Richardson and Mike Evans. This presentation stemmed from an increasing number of audience questions over the past several months about how to upgrade hard drive storage space and the problems several members had encountered in doing so.

Mike led off, explaining that the size of the drive recognizable by any given computer was a function of design interactions and limitations in three areas: a) the computer's ROM BIOS, b) the operating system, and c)the hard disk drive itself. In order for a new drive's full capacity to be recognized and usable, all three factors had to be interactively compliant.

Over the years, designers have successfully overcome a number of barriers imposed by one or more of the three. Examples include the 512 MB cap, the 2 GB and 8 GB limits, and more recently, the 32 GB limit. He pointed out that computers built before 1999 would likely have one of these barriers, and since it's difficult to purchase a new drive less than 40GB in size, it could be troublesome to upgrade.

The solution lies in the use of software solutions that are able to trick the BIOS and OS and "disguise" the actual size of the drive. Such programs are called overlays, software solutions that are inserted onto the boot sector of the drive and that "translate" the drive's parameters into values that can be used by the computer's BIOS and the OS.

There are a number of such programs around that are available for purchase, but, these days, each of the major drive manufacturers makes available an overlay program specifically for use with its disks and they make it available free of charge. When we purchase a new drive in its retail box, the box will include the drive, new cables, the screws needed for installation, and the software needed to install it.

At many local outlets, it's possible to purchase a bare drive, one that does not include anything but the drive itself. In that case, be sure to purchase IDE cables, preferably the newer 80-wire cables needed for ATA 66 and greater drives. Also, if the drive needs to be installed in a 5 1/4" drive bay, an adaptor may be needed to install it correctly. The software can be downloaded from the drive manufacturer's Internet Web site.

For this demonstration, a Seagate 40 GB drive was to be installed in a Pentium 233 MX computer with a 1997 BIOS. After configuring the drive as a standalone drive in a one-drive system, Dennis went to the Seagate support Web site, found the software and downloaded it. The instructions given with the download instructed him to insert a blank floppy disk in its drive and then click on the self-extracting downloaded file to create a boot disk with the disk management software. A few minutes later, Dennis rebooted using the newly created boot disk and the Seagate software automatically determined that the disk needed an overlay and, with Dennis' approval, installed it.

Next, the software asked Dennis to decide how many partitions he wanted and what size should be used for each. Dennis indicated that he wanted one partition using the entire 40 gigabytes, and the software proceeded to partition and format the new drive. During the re-boot process, the OnTrack Disk Manager was seen briefly indicating that the overlay was in place and functioning properly. With it, the computer saw a full 40-gigabyte drive ready for installation of the operating system.

Next, Mike and Dennis demonstrated how to use the software to upgrade from an older drive. In this case, a relatively new motherboard with a small 4-gigabyte drive was used to demonstrate the upgrade process. After first configuring the drive as a slave drive on the primary IDE channel where the original 4-gigabyte primary drive was located, Dennis created the Disk Manager boot disk and rebooted. In this instance, the Seagate software determined no overlay was needed.

Next, it asked Dennis if he wanted to move the contents of the existing 4-gigabyte drive to the new drive. This time, with his approval, the Seagate software formatted and partitioned the new drive and made an exact copy of the old drive on it. When it was finished, Dennis shut off the computer, configured the old 4 GB drive as a slave drive, and changed the jumpers on the new drive to make it the Master drive. When he rebooted, Windows started normally and the computer now had a 40-gigabyte primary drive and a 4-gigabyte secondary drive.

This was a very lengthy presentation that included a very detailed handout that Dennis made for the members that described the steps involved in upgrading to a new large hard disk drive. The presentation was well received with many questions and ideas offered by the group. This meeting ran very late and was quickly adjourned at the end of the presentation.

The Orangevale/Folsom Chapter of the SPCUG meets on the 4th Thursday of each month except in November and December, when the two meetings are normally combined and moved to the first Thursday of December due to the holiday season. Our meetings are open to anyone; please come to learn and share but most of all come to have a good time.

7:00 PM to 9:00 PM, Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church, AMC Room 1, 11427 Fair Oaks Blvd., Fair Oaks, CA 95628