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Weird Detection Problem

L

LoveTheBass

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 13, 2004
Messages
131
I recently installed XP onto a new hard drive. That was working fine and dandy till I checked how much space I had on the drive. Out of 160 gigs, I have 32. That was after installing a couple programs. Now I've put the XP disk back in, and it's still only detecting 32 Gigs of space. I'm wondering what the next step would be. Anyone?
 
Sorry, I'm relatively new on hard drives. <-- edited here because of stupid question about clips. Look to next post please -->
 
I don't know what the settings should be. I've looked at the back and changed the clips around a few times. I can't seem to find the right combination. I'm at a loss. It's a deskstar 160GB, if that helps at all.
 
You want the master setting, for 16 heads. On the back of the drive, there is a 9 pin jumper block, it looks like this:

1 2 3 4 5
* 6 7 8 9

For 16 head operation without any limitations (applies to any recent system, including yours) you want a jumper on pins 5-9. You then need a second jumper to determine the drive's master/slave status. For master, you want to jumper 2-6, cable select is 3-7 and slave is 4-8. Hitachi has not changed the jumper configuration on the Deskstar series since the IBM Deathstar days - I tore out an old 40GB Deskstar from a system (the drive had finally failed) and the jumper settings diagram is exactly the same on my 250GB PATA 7K250 :eek: This is more than little confusing to most users, and the vast majority of the limitiations available are not necessary on systems manufactured in this century. :)
 
Thanks for the explanation. I changed the jumpers 5-9 and 2-6. What's the next step? I thought that restarting it might work, but it still didn't detect the other space. Do I need to re-install xp?
 
'Start' ''Run' 'diskmgmt.msc' When it pops up, you should see your 160GB drive in the lower right pane. There will be the partitions you created, and it should show another ~120GB after the 32. If it does, you can right click that free space and create a new partition with the new found free space and assign it a second drive letter. If you want one big partition at this stage, backup, repartition/reformat, and reinstall is your only option. If the other 120GB doesn't show up in Disk Management, we have some more troubleshooting to do, most likely on your system's BIOS.
 
Disk Management is not showing the entire 120 Gigs. I'm going to see if reformatting it and taking away all the partitions is going to help at all.
 
I booted into the Bios and it says that the maximum capacity for my drive is 33 Gigs. I looked at the information that the software bundled with the hard drive came with and it says that I can't set the maximum hard drive partition size more than 33 Gigs. I don't know what to do.
 
How old is your mobo? What make/model/chipset/BIOS version? There may be a BIOS update to overcome some of these limitatations. There is also the option of getting a cheap PCI add-in card to bypass BIOS limitations.
 
It came standard with our Dell. It was from 2000 I believe, but I'll post the BIOS settings as soon as I get home. I couldn't tell you anything about the mobo since it's a POS and I didn't build the computer.
 
Okay, I'm in the BIOS.

BIOS Version: A09
Service Tag GYZ1901

Primary IDE Master:
Type: [Auto]
Maximum Capacity: 32253 MB

I can't find any mobo information, there's no setting or display of that. It's a Dell Dimension L700cx, so it's pretty old, but I'm not sure what mobo that would use. Where would I go to get an update to the BIOS, cause I'm pretty sure that it's never been done before, manually anyways. That's all the information I can find that may be relevant, if there's something else you want me to look for, that's all right.
 
All right. I've gone through what the Dell support has to say, and I have the Disk that needs to be read in order for the BIOS to be updated, but my computer isn't booting it. It says Non-System disk or disk error. Replace and pres any key when ready. This isn't addressed in the Dell support section, and I have set up the BIOS so that the floppy is being booted from first. What's going on with that?
 
LoveTheBass said:
All right. I've gone through what the Dell support has to say, and I have the Disk that needs to be read in order for the BIOS to be updated, but my computer isn't booting it. It says Non-System disk or disk error. Replace and pres any key when ready. This isn't addressed in the Dell support section, and I have set up the BIOS so that the floppy is being booted from first. What's going on with that?
Click to expand...

One of two things.

a) The disk was made incorrectly
b) There is something wrong with the diskette so it isn't booting.
 
I remade the disk, and it is still giving me the same error. There wasn't any errors when I made it, so I'm assuming that it went all right. But it's still not reading correctly.
 
LoveTheBass said:
I remade the disk, and it is still giving me the same error. There wasn't any errors when I made it, so I'm assuming that it went all right. But it's still not reading correctly.
Click to expand...

Then I'm out of ideas. Maybe someone else can chime in. I've upgraded more BIOSes than I can count, and I've never made a bootdisk that wouldn't work except for one time when the floppy was bad.

What do you see when you look at the diskette's contents from Windows?
 
2 Files:
DLCX_A14.exe
Release.txt

That's it.

Would switching the floppy drive to a different one make a difference (just wondering about drivers and if I'd have to configure it first)? I'm wondering if somehow this one went bad?
 
LoveTheBass said:
2 Files:
DLCX_A14.exe
Release.txt

That's it.

Would switching the floppy drive to a different one make a difference (just wondering about drivers and if I'd have to configure it first)? I'm wondering if somehow this one went bad?
Click to expand...

Hmmm. Read 'Release.Txt'. Also, try running DLCX-A14.exe from a location on your hardrive (not from the diskette)
 
Can the BIOS be updated from within Windows? I didn't think they could be. Either way, I'd have to re-install the operating system again which would take quite a while. I'm going to try copying these files over to a bootable CD, because at least I know that works. If it doesn't, then I'll re-install Windows and try opening from inside.
 
LoveTheBass said:
Can the BIOS be updated from within Windows? I didn't think they could be. Either way, I'd have to re-install the operating system again which would take quite a while. I'm going to try copying these files over to a bootable CD, because at least I know that works. If it doesn't, then I'll re-install Windows and try opening from inside.
Click to expand...

The reason I wanted you to run it is I think that file might actually make the bootable diskette.
 
Ah. Ok, I'm hearing you there. I will try that with this computer and try the other one once the operating system is back up and running.
 
All right. I'm not sure exactly what happened. I ran the executable, and a command prompt showed up, but nothing happened, it just closed itself after a little while. Don't know why... But what I downloaded from Dell was an executable that asked for a blank floppy in the A: Drive, so I assumed it was making that disk bootable, since that was what the online instructions said it would do.
 
He needs to use the option to format the floppy as an MS-DOS startup disk in the Format A: little 'wizard' thingee. that will put a command interpreter on the floppy and allow him to boot to a command line. After the format finishes with the MS-DOS files, put the BIOS update files back on the disk, and then try booting with the floppy. DO NOT run the flash utility in Windows, you may permanently FUBAR the computer. The other option here is to get a PCI addin card with 2 PATA ports to bypass this BIOS limitation.

Also, the more I think about it, the more I think the addin card is necessary - I doubt a BIOS update will get a box from 2000 around the 137GB barrier. I have 3-4 of them sitting in a drawer or you can get one cheap on Newegg.
 
From Bullit's link:
48bit LBA (Large Block Addressing) mobo BIOS support (check for updates)
or
Chipset Driver patch in some cases see Intel Driver updates below
OR
a 48bit LBA capable IDE controller card (or IDE RAID Card)
Since a PCI controller card employs SCSI drivers, this is completely a non-issue, and even the service packs arent required

I'm not saying you're wrong - you were right indeed - but that's only half of the solution to the 137GB barrier. His BIOS must also be capable, as well as the OS, of 48 bit LBA before he can see beyond 137GB. I'm reasonably sure the BIOS update that he has from Dell will get him around the 32GB barrier. However, there may be nothing we can do about the 137GB Barrier on his system - the BIOS may not support LBA beyond 28-bit, which makes the addin card his only option.
 
I updated the BIOS yesterday. Not quite sure why, but it seems like you have to make the Floppy Disk from the same computer you intend to use it on... Don't know if that is common sense to you guys, but it fixed that problem. I still can't see the rest of the space with the updated BIOS, and it looks like the best thing I can do now is to get the card. Does anyone have any recommendations for one, since I don't know exactly what to look for?
 
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