Annoying boot memory issue
So, long story short I have an IBM PS/2 model 80 386 20mhz with 4MB on motherboard, 8MB on a 386 enhanced MCA expansion board.
Trying to install Windows 95 (its somehow faster than Windows 3.1 on a 386, to me anyway) and the bootdisk is not detecting the RAM on the expansion card.
When I've installed DOS to the HDD, it counts up the RAM on board first, to 4MB, then the SCSI board BIOS initializes and goes through its song and dance, and then after that it finishes counting the RAM up to 12MB.
OS/2 Warp 3.0 bootdisk acts this way as well (the proper way, so the setup can 'see' all of the RAM)
Windows 95 and 98 bootdisks do not do this. I even shoehorned in emm386.exe on the bootdisk and into the config.sys.
Hard restart, soft reset, nothing makes the RAM show up so the Windows 95 setup can't complete, because it doesnt have enough RAM. It needs that extra 8MB on the 386 board. I've been checking every time I change something with the bootdisks with mem.com.
It only shows the 4MB on motherboard. When I run mem in an installed DOS environment, it shows the full 12MB.
The way I previously tested Windows 95 is by installing DOS first. I would rather avoid this.
How do I do it?
Comments
Maybe you should try HIMEM.SYS instead of EMM386.EXE, in other words, you might need an extended memory manager, not an expanded memory manager (This is what EMM386.EXE is)
You might ask around on the Vintage Computing Forum http://www.vcfed.org/forum/search.php There are lots of die-hard IBMers there.
If the BIOS stops at 4MB, and runs other BIOS extensions, then this does not sound like a normal RAM card. If the memory is not a contiguous part of system memory, then DOS/Win9x can not use it. If OS/2 works with it, then it may have special support built in.