Motherboard bios large harddrive issue

Recommended by Wim's BIOS...

Ok, now I'm back and tried the following:

I installed the SP3, since it's just a collection of the patches released since SP2, as you said correctly. --> Nothing changed so far.

Then I tried out the newest version of the disc tool from Western Digital. --> And hey, it indeed told me, I didn't have the right support for 48 Bit LBA!!! I let the tool resolve this problem but nothing changed. (I think the tool didn't find the registry entry "Enable big LBA" which isn't needed since SP2, right? In fact, nothing changed after the tool inserted this registry value.)

Afterwards I tried out your MHDD-Tool. The following sounds interesting:
- My strange "removable disc" on Port 100h which doesn't exist in real is allways "not ready" if I try to get some informations.
- My real disc disappeared after trying to get informations from this "removable disc".
- After reboot I was able to get informations from my real HD again. The SIZE is now 131071MB, but LBA is 268,435,455 (Byte?). Cache is 8192KB. BIOS: 80H.

How can I make my drive having the full 250 gigs now? I can't do this in windows with the windows partition utility, there the maximum space is still also 137 gigs...

Even if I never made an image on my disc, I'll try to delete this LBA sector 3 as you told me. But would this change anything or would it even be worser then?

What should I make zero there? I've logical C (0'016'386'235 pages), logical D (0'252'043'783 pages) and physical 0 (0'268'435'453 pages)?

[cp]

"Enable big LBA" which isn't needed since SP2, right?

right.

The SIZE is now 131071MB, but LBA is 268,435,455 (Byte?).

which is absolutely correct since 268435455 is number of 512kB (LBA) blocks which infact adds up to 128GB in the end. but then again this is just exactly 2^28 which is the maximum number of blocks reported for LBA28. look, the only problem is that the drive will not report its real size if it isn't asked to transfer its LBA48 size.

check question nr.15, it should help you using their software.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg ... search_fnl

their software should supply all you need to get the drive working correctly.

Thanks for the link, just looked at it.

I once formatted my drive to 250 gigs with an external USB - PATA-Converter and then reinstalled XP there. After that I had the probs with all the bluescreens after writing more than about 100 gigs on the drive.

Could there be the same problem again with this new tool?

Ok, there's a point "On the next screen select the operating system you plan to install and left-click on Next." Perhaps this will change something...?

I've nothing to loose, so I'll try this one and write back the results here later on.

What about my "removable disc"? Should it disappear automatically or is this another problem I've to solve?

[cp]

I once formatted my drive to 250 gigs with an external USB - PATA-Converter and then reinstalled XP there. After that I had the probs with all the bluescreens after writing more than about 100 gigs on the drive.

the boot partition should be in the BIOS known space and XP should have at least SP2 installed. that's all. the source of the bluescreens may be another.

What about my "removable disc"? Should it disappear automatically or is this another problem I've to solve?

i don't known where it is coming from but it seems to be a misinterpretation of windows concerning the data aquired from the hdd. on the other hand the hdd shouldn't provide such data anyway.
it hopefully goes away when the drive is reset to its factory defaults.

I think the biggest problem then was so I only made one partition on my HDD, so the BIOS-partition had the full, from the bios not supported 250 gigs. Because of that windows was not able to address the drive correctly 'till the end...

I already have an partitioning and supporting tool for exactly my harddrive from the WD site. Perhaps I'll try to use this one to make it working. I'll make then two partitions, the system partition with about 120 gigs and a second one for my data stuff. So I'm also able to install all my progs in the system drive. Is this a good solution also?

[cp]

in general it is not a good solution to install anything else than the OS on the boot partition. it is infact useful to even redirect 'my place' (holding your personal files) to another partition. if the OS fails, you can install a clean version without backing anything up. you probably have to reinstall some programs but at least you still have all their files and more important : your personal files.
the OS won't get slow because installing more programs keeps data scattered all over the disc. reorganizing the disc after each installation would be time consuming. and : the OS partition will never spill over.
as a side effect you'll have a huge data partition to store all the data. if you split them up you'll have two partitions, one far too big for the OS and the other too small to keep all your data.

but hey, that's just an advice. you can still do whatever you like.

Hi again,

you're right, I've to think about that again. But anyway - I've to postpone the whole thing because of my coming holidays. To solve this problem is not compatible with the holidays and my girlfriend.

Thanks again for all your informations and links, I'll work on the problem in about 3 weeks again.

Till then: Good luck to the german football team also!


Best regards from Switzerland and perhaps 'till soon again (?)
Edi