Greg Iverson asked:
My 24X CD Rom Drive in my 200 mhz Pentium computer died on the 31st...
Do I replace it with an IDE drive or can I use an EIDE drive?
Garth Wood responded:
To determine whether you have an IDE or EIDE controller on a
Windows 98 machine, go to Start --> Programs --> Accessories --> System
Tools --> System Information, and when you start that utility, expand
the directory structure under Components (in the left-hand window), and
then click on Storage. You should get a list (in the right-hand window)
of all the mass storage devices presently on your machine, and whether
they are IDE, EIDE or SCSI.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Normally a good suggestion but in this case you are likely to be led
astray. Likely to be led astray since, in the disk drive world, "IDE"
tends to be used in a very generic way. For example, on my own machine,
which certainly has an EIDE controller, pulling up the Win98 system
information identifies the controller as IDE. It also gives the driver
name as ESDI_506.pdr. ST506 was the original specification for PC hard
drives. That evolved into ESDI which evolved into IDE which evolved
into EIDE... and is still evolving.
The thing that actually differentiates IDE from EIDE is that IDE can
only control hard drives up to 528MB. EIDE goes up to 8.4GB.
So, if you have a drive larger than 528MB (probable if you have a 200
MHz Pentium) then you have an EIDE controller and can use an EIDE
CD-ROM. Actually, I think you would be hard pressed to find a CD-ROM
today that isn't EIDE.
ps: EIDE controllers will work with IDE drives but not the other way
round.
Chuck Norcutt
Woburn, Massachusetts, USA
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|