More HD frustration!

BIOS update, EIDE card, or overlay software? (FAQ Hard disk recognition)
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leesider
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Posts: 6
Joined: Wed May 01, 2002 8:24 pm

Hi Everyone,
It's about the 32 GB limit again I'm afraid....
I have a three year old HD on my PC which I wanted to replace so I purchased a 40 GB Maxtor HD. When I installed it first it was only detecting 32 GB on my PC and refused to allow me set it as master.
I had to use it as slave to the existing HD, even though I wanted the full 40 gigs and also wanted it as master, not slave.
After consulting with the good people on this forum I discovered that I neede to upgrade my BIOS, which I did without any problems.
After installing the new BIOS chip, I finally got the full use of my 40 GB hard drive (well it actually only showed up as 37 but that's five gigs extra anyway).
Unfortunately, I am still unable to set it as master!
As it's booting up, it gets as far as "Detecting IDE Primary Master...." and then freezes!
I have a feeling the CMOS has not been updated, as the 40 GB drive is only shown as 32 on the CMOS.
I also downloaded a "BIOS Wizard" which ran a series of tests on my BIOS and it failed one called "Enhanced Hard Disk Drive Test" which is described as follows:
"Enhanced Disk Drive Specification was designed to support large volume hard disk drives. If your BIOS does not support this specification, you will not be able to support large volume hard disk drives with your PC. For example, Hard Drives larger than 8.4 Gigabytes or 32 Gigabytes."
Can anyone tell me what I should do now?
Thanks in advance to anyone who replies!
a_user
Good ol' Boy
Posts: 107
Joined: Fri Mar 22, 2002 4:09 pm
Location: Elgin, Texas

37 gig does not equal 40 gig and there fore you do not have full use of the drive. Also, the fact that you can set it to master and it fails a the eide test tells me something is not right.

Check the bios parms to see if you have any options to set LBA. This should allow the use of Init13 extemsions to get passed the 40 gig line.
Please use the Fourms for Bios Questions
and not my Email

Flashing is risky in any form!
Rainbow
The UniFlasher
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Location: Slovakia
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HDD manufacturers use kilobyte that has 1000 bytes instead of 1024 as it should be. So so-called 40GB HDD is actually something around 37GB (mine is 37.2GB). Looks like you encountered 32GB bug in Award BIOS - you should upgrade it. If you don't know your board manufacturer and model, send BIOS ID string.
Patched and tested BIOSes are at http://wims.rainbow-software.org
UniFlash - Flash anything anywhere
leesider
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed May 01, 2002 8:24 pm

I've got it working as master now. It turns out I needed an extra jumper.
I looked at Maxtor's website and found instructions on how to set the jumpers correctly. The instructions on the drive itself were wrong.
They only showed one jumper in the diagram.
The one on the website showed two so I just took the jumper off the older HD and put it on the new one. It recognised it then O.K.
The only trouble is I now only have use of one of the drives!
I need another jumper for the old drive so I can install it as slave to the new one.
I'm prepared to accept 37 Gb for the moment , even though I haven't got the full use of the drive as you say, a_user.
It's probably something to do with the BIOS.
Would you recommend buying an EIDE Controller card?
edwin
The Hardware Archivist
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Now wait a second, that 37GB you are seeing IS the whole drive for the reasons a_user has given you.

I don't know if you bought that new Maxtor drive in a box or just the drive, if in a box it should contain a little bag with more jumpers. Otherwise you could ask the place of purchase for another jumper.
leesider
New visitors - please read the rules.
Posts: 6
Joined: Wed May 01, 2002 8:24 pm

I reckon you're probably right, edwin.
HD manufacturers often round off the size of the drive to the nearest number that ends with zero.
I'm not that annoyed about it, it's only 3 gigs.
I'm was more annoyed about not being able to install it as master and I've solved that now!
In answer to your query, I didn't receive any jumpers with the drive, it just came in a sealed plastic bag on it's own inside a box (I ordered
it over the 'phone).
I didn't get any screws either to install it on the bracket, I had to take them off the cover of the CPU!
I'll probably scrounge them somewhere...
Cheers
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