At 02:31 PM 2/26/04 -0500, Rick wrote:
 >From what I understand, you are willing (or even anxious) to erase
>EVERYTHING on this drive, (and any partitions it may contain).
>Correct me if I am wrong since it makes a GREAT deal of difference\
>in what "we" can try, or "do" to the HD...

That's correct.  I'm willing to use this machine as a learning tool.
There's nothing in it I need.

>What brand is the hard drive?
>How big?,
>Is it a "well known" name brand computer?
>and was this the HD that came with it originally?

The computer is AMAX.  I tried to see if the hard drive has a brand
on it, but I cannot contort myself any better (and I thought plumbers
had it hard!), so the information I have is from the BIOS Setup Utility.
This is the original equipment.  I've gone to their site
<http://online.amax.com/amaxres/default.asp?>
but I have no idea how to tell which brand of hard drive this is.

The Bios is PhoenixBios 4.0 Release 6.0.  It is set to Setup Defaults.
There are 6 screens:
Main, Advanced, Security, Power, Boot, Exit.

On the Main screen:
Processor Type   Pentium (R) II
Processor Speed   300 MHz
Cache RAM  512 KB
System Memory  128 MB
BIOS version  4A4LL0X0.86A.0024.P09
Language: [English (US)]
System Time: [14:11:20] and ticking
System Date: [02/26/2004]
{arrow>}Floppy Options
Hard Disk Pre-Delay: [3 Seconds]
{arrow>}Primary IDE Master  [CD-ROM CDU701]
{arrow>}Primary IDE Slave    [None]
{arrow>}Secondary IDE Master  [None]
{arrow>}Secondary IDE Slave    [None]

>Do you know if the BIOS directly supported it?,
>or if something like EZDrive,
>or MaxBlast,
>or DiskManager supported (and ran) it.?
>
>There might have been a screen (before) while booting
>that used one of those words.

On the very first screen during Power On (POST?), it tells
me the name of the BIOS company (Phoenix Technologies)
and some other info that flies by.  Then I get the blank screen
that says Operating System not found.

>Having it directly connected to the MB (if I got that right)
>is a plus too...

Yes.  Cables are going from the hard drive to the MB.

Thanks,
Diane

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