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Considering moving back to Windows NT 4.0...


ppgrainbow

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After more than a year of running Windows 95 OSR2 on the Toshiba Tecra 720CDT laptop, I'm have found that it is becoming unreliable. I already bought a Compact Flash to IDE hard drive adapter and I will use one of the SanDisk Ultra 8 GB Compact Flash card to use as a internal hard disk.

I bought a Syba Best Connectivity 2.5" IDE 44-pin to Dual Compact Flash Adapter for $14.17 and I'm going to use the SanDisk 8GB Ultra CF card (SDCFH-008G-A11) as the boot device on the Toshiba Tecra 720CDT laptop and the SanDisk Ultra 8 GB (SDCFHS-008G-AFFP) card as the PCMCIA drive.

This is especially the case since ATA-33 IDE hard drives are no longer sold as new.

I'm considering re-installing Windows NT 4.0 Workstation on the Tecra 720CDT laptop after getting the CF card installed on the CF-to-IDE card although I should be aware that neither the Tecra 720CDT laptop nor Windows NT 4.0 supports hard disks and other media larger than 7.88 GB...so, I'm maxing out the hard drive and memory.

Since Windows NT 4.0 uses the NTFS 4.0 file system, how well will Windows NT 4.0 play out when it is installed on the compact flash card? I personally found that compact flash cards are more reliable than MLC SSDs as far as I know.

 

Thoughts, anyone?

Edited by ppgrainbow
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Well, not really.

Cannot say about that specific PC, but there is not a limit of 7.88 Gb in NT4.00 as you describe it.

The limit is only for the "system" partition, you can have more volumes fine beyond that CHS limit (with SP4 or later):

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/224526/en-us

Whether the issue is just the "system" partition (as defined "reversed" by the good MS guys) or also the "boot" partition, see this "clear" ;) KB:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/197667/EN-US

The system partition (boot partition) is still limited to 7.8GB whether an updated version of the Atapi.sys file is installed or not.

 

is to be seen.

I wonder if the limit is just in the NTLDR/NTDETECT.COM and using the 2K one it will be gone (of course the install procedure will need to be modified, possibly by installing to a "dummy" and copying files to the "final target").

But - for the record - a "plain" NT 4.00 install (the OS only) will be less than 200 Mb in size, you can add to it all the programs you want and even  few more, but as long as you keep data on another volume a 1 Gb (or at the most a 2 Gb volume) will be more than enough for it.

A 1 Gb volume is perfectly fine in FAT16, the 2 Gb is also OK, on a border line.

 

And the NTFS version used by NT (there is a lot of confusion on this) is actually version 1.2:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFS

 

As long as you disable last accessed times in the Registry, even NTFS should not be such a problem on CF cards.

 

 

jaclaz

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Thank you for the heads up. Windows NT 4.0 RTM installations are limited to the first 4 GB FAT or NTFS v1.2 partition on the boot hard disk.
 
Windows NT 4.0 RTM takes up at least 110 MB of disk space and with the memory maxed out at 144 MB, it shouldn't be too much of a problem to have at least a 192 MB swapfile. :)
 
The 7.84 GB limit only applies to the Windows NT 4.0 version of NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM files.
 
By the way, how can last accessed times be disabled in the Windows NT registry?

 

 

Edit: I forgot to mention that the Tecra 720CDT laptop lacks the capability to boot from CD-ROM. So, in order to setup Windows NT 4.0, I would have to operate from the boot diskette, create a FAT partition (up to 2 GB), format it, copy all of the files from the \I386 directory on the Windows NT 4.0 CD-ROM installation setup and type WINNT /B. Using the /B makes the installation floppyless, creates a \$WIN_NT$.~BT directory on the boot drive and copies the boot files there from the source directory on the CD-ROM.

Edited by ppgrainbow
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By the way, how can last accessed times be disabled in the Windows NT registry?

Should be:

http://www.pctools.com/guides/registry/detail/50/

 

Edit: I forgot to mention that the Tecra 720CDT laptop lacks the capability to boot from CD-ROM. So, in order to setup Windows NT 4.0, I would have to operate from the boot diskette, create a FAT partition (up to 2 GB), format it, copy all of the files from the \I386 directory on the Windows NT 4.0 CD-ROM installation setup and type WINNT /B. Using the /B makes the installation floppyless, creates a \$WIN_NT$.~BT directory on the boot drive and copies the boot files there from the source directory on the CD-ROM.

Not even through PLoP or grub4dos (or good ol' Smart Boot Manager)? :unsure:

jaclaz

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Thank you for the help. I will bookmark the link for future reference.

 

According to this comment by Quad in June 2005, the Toshiba Tecra 720CDT is a old unit that was manufactured in April 1996. Booting directly from CD-ROM is not possible. All OS installations on the Tecra 720CDT have to be done from the floppy drive.

 

Later Toshiba Tecra models have the ability to boot from the floppy drive. I'll look into finding ways to boot from CD using the PLoP Boot Manager from the floppy drive.

Edited by ppgrainbow
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If you have to start experimenting, start with grub4dos, PLoP is an excellent thingy, but grub4dos is much more flexible when it comes to device assignment.

 

jaclaz

 

Alrighty. I'll go for the PLoP Boot Manager to see how it goes. :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Thank you!

 

The bad news is that:

1. Parts of the hard drive caddy for the Tecra 720CDT laptop broke.

2. The fan inside the motherboard on the laptop stopped working.

3. The part that I ordered off of Amazon is deemed unwanted and it has to be sent back. :(

 

In short, after more than five years of use, I'm gonna have to give up the old laptop and toss it to the recycling centre.

 

From now on, I will most likely run Windows NT 4.0 under VirtualBox, VMware Player or Virtual PC instead. :)

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