I picked up this 5.25" 1.2 MB FDD at our Sunday retro meetup. I gave it a test, but it has a problem that's probably going to REALLY limit its usability. Let's explore in a 🧵 here!
First of all, the drive is a Mitsubishi MF504C-347UA. Say that five times fast! The Google tells me it is 1.2 MB, at least if this "for sale" post I found is to be believed. Okay, well, that's good!
We're going to test it out in one of my favorite PCs: the 486 DX2/66 that is loaded to the brim with CD-ROM drives. And expansion cards too.
I received some GREAT stickers from @geekenspiel today! And it's given me an idea, and, yes, it involves the eMachines T2341! Let's talk about it in a 🧵 here!
So, as many know, I have been on an escapade to add a bunch of operating systems to this PC. This is the current list!
As such, I think the only logical thing to do is to start adding matching stickers 😂. Is it going to be over the top? Why.. yes! Is it going to be glorious though? Oh... absolutely yes🤣
It's time for another OS install on the eMachines T2341 Athlon XP 2400+ machine, and this time, it's IBM OS/2 Warp 4.52. The end result for this is VERY impressive. Get ready for a long 🧵 with details. Buckle up, here we go!
So, for those who have been following along, I've been on a bit of a crusade to install OSes on this system. Here's the list so far. My favorite boot and partition manager, BootIt Bare Metal, is great. Some OSes have cylinder limits, which I have had to juggle a bit.
I burned two disks, one is the "boot" CD and one is the "client" CD. Naturally, you start with the "boot" CD, then when asked, you put the "client" CD. And then the installer gets rolling!
Time for another OS install on the eMachines T2341. This time, it's Windows NT 3.51. Prepare to be underwhelmed by this install 😂. I'll explain more, let's do a 🧵
So, similar to other NT installs, I copied the contents of the i386 directory to a FAT16 drive partition. Running winnt /b, we are able to do a diskless install from there! Phase 1 of 3 completes pretty quickly.
Time for the "DOS-based" portion of the install, we'll call it Phase 2. During this part, we get to choose the install location and get to choose to convert the partition to NTFS if so desired. I elected to do just that.
Did I really install YET ANOTHER OS on the eMachines T2341? I sure did! And I had to call Microsoft to complete this install. Let's talk about installing Windows Server 2003 in a 🧵 here!
Installation was pretty straight forward! Our partition is in the middle of the disk, so the first screen looks a little weird. Look at all of that marketing as we install 😆. And I set things up for 5 client access licenses, though I won't be using them.
On first boot, we get some tips on how to set up our server! I'm not planning to do any of that (well, that's a waste, now isn't it, Chris? 😂). But cool to see it anyway!
Another OS install on the eMachines T2341? Yes please! This time it's going to be Windows NT 4.0 Workstation. This gave me some trouble, and not everything is working the way I'd like, but, well... let's talk about it in a BIG 🧵 here. Buckle up!
So, starting out, I set up an NTFS partition using, of course, BootIt. I then booted into my Windows for Workgroups 3.11 install and copied over the NT installer files. From there, I kicked off a diskless install of NT 4.0 Workstation using the /b option. Woot!
The first part of the install asks you where the installer files are, and it makes a copy of them. Not too terribly efficient, but I guess that's one way it can ensure that it has what it needs. From there, you get to reboot into the installer proper...