HD space problem

O

oOo sam lee oOo

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 29, 2004
Messages
297
i've read some threads about computers not recognizing HD's over a certain size, and mine's kind of like that, except in most of the ones i've read, the BIOS recognizes the real size. In my case, it doesnt. I have a 120GB Western Digital HD (WD1200JB), and it worked fine for around a year and a half, but after trying some settings to help with another problem, it shows up in BIOS as around 33280 MB or somewhere close to that. I tried teh WD LIfeguard tools,a nd setting it up as a 120 GB HD, which i thought would work, but BIOS still sees it as 33 GB or so. I tried running WD Diagnostics from a floppy, and even there, when i try to do some tests, it shows up as 33 GB capacity. I've never had this problem before, so i dont think it has to do with the BIOS Version or anything (just in case, anyone care to tell me how to flash BIOS?) Oh yea, and BIOS and WD lifeguard recognizes the drive as a WD1200JB.

thanks
 
is the drive formatted to fat32? if it is, format it to ntfs and you'll get the full capacity
 
This is probably a BIOS limitation. Try flashing the BIOS, or you can use an add-on pci card with "48-bit LBA" to fix this.
 
protias said:
is the drive formatted to fat32? if it is, format it to ntfs and you'll get the full capacity
Click to expand...
even if it was, the BIOS ought to see it as the full size.
 
Bios should not just randomly up and see another size drive, unless the drive's firmware has either been futzed with or is dying.
 
5. 32 GB limitation.

This condition is caused by the Award BIOS inability to address hard drives greater than 32GB. Award has been made aware of this issue and has fixed their "core" BIOS as of 6/99. They are passing this information along to the motherboard manufacturers' that use their BIOS. Updates for the BIOS should be available soon from individual motherboard manufacturers' to correct this problem. The following are options to overcome the 32 GB BIOS capacity barriers:
· Please contact your motherboard manufacturer, not Award, for a BIOS update.
· (Recommended) Purchase a PCI ATA controller card that will support the capacity of the drive. The two benefits of ATA controller cards are: (1)the ability to support large capacity drives and (2) the ability to support the faster transfer rates of the drive. Maxtor's online store, www.MaxStore.com, has a complete selection of ATA controller cards that support the full capacity of all Maxtor drives.
· Or use MaxBlast 3 "Set Drive Size" utility. Please reference Answer ID: 1361
Click to expand...
This is a known issue. 32GB is a standard size to have problems with.
 
protias: formatted ntfs multiple times
mage: it worked perfectly fine before without an add-on card

thanks, but remember, everything worked fine before.
 
If your BIOS allows it, go int and try to go in and manually configure the size by setting your heads, sectors and what not, all that info can be found on the drive itself. See if that works. If not, the WD utility is sometimes finicky. Try using DFT (Drive Fitness Test). You can find it on Hitachi's website, it has never failed me before.
 
mage: if there was, i never touched it ;)
sovalon: ill go try that out now

i actually signed on cuz i found something out. i dunno why i didnt try before, but i hooked up my other hd, just to see if BIOS would read it correctly at 120 gb, and sure enough, it did. so its not BIOS. and i just checked and my warranty expired, unless i can find the receipt, which i doubt i can. however, its good ot see i still have a chnace with teh head size and all that stuff

thanks

btw, do the drive utilities from differnet companies work? like hitachi w/ WD or maxtor?
 
alright so i tried changing those settings, but no luck :(
in the settings for the HD in bios, my first option was "IDE Primary Master" with choices None, auto, and manual. Then there was "Access Mode" with choices CHS, LBA, Large, and Auto. underneath, was the information like boot sectors and stuff, except it was the type of font where its a different color that means you cant edit that stuff manually. Both the options were set at auto, and while playing around, the only combination with which i could change settings was Manual for IDE Primary master and CHS for Access mode. i changed all the settings so that Bios actually showed it as 120 gb hd (followed same settings as 2nd drive), but when i save it under those modes (manual/chs) the hd doesnt show up when it restarts. When i say this i mean in the way beginning, for like a second when it lists all the drives on the IDE cables. So i got back into BIOS, and tried setting it to 120 gb again in the same modes, and then switching back to auto, thinking it'll save settings, but again it didnt work. THe only time it showed at the beginning of bootup was when it was on auto/auto, which is also when it showed as 33 gb.

on a brighter note, kind of, i finally got the HD out of an old compaq my dad brought home (damn retarded case). its 40 gb's, but its 5400rpm. will that significantly affect performance if i install windows on this drive?
Edit: after further reading in this forum, its generally agreed that i shouldn't use it as my main drive. Therefore, i guess im just gonna have to transfer my data onto the 40gb (which im assuming shouldnt affect performance too much?), and partition my 120 in a weird way to make it practical. any suggestions?

thanks again
 
i usually partition my drives as 10gb for my os and then the rest for data, games, etc.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top