Motherboard bios large harddrive issue

[judia]

I have an issue with my motherboard (It's a compaq 845g with a s/p number of 289767-001 any other information about it I can't find x.x) not recognizing a new harddrive with an old copy of windows xp.. the current limitation on it is 132 gig and I'm not sure if it's xp pro (no service pack addition) or the mobo itself that can't tell the drive is 320 gig... I've gotten the latest bios from hp.com and flashed it to no avail-same issue..but the latest bios from hp is 5 years old so I don't really know how much help that would even be. Any advice would be extremely appreciated because except for the new harddrive problem this computer has new ram/video ect and was working great until the previous drive started to and did fail...

[cp]

read this:
http://www.wimsbios.com/phpBB2/topic8931.html

post back if you have additional questions.

[judia]

Ok I've read this and I installed windows on the partition size it would recognize which happens to be 131 gig almost 132 gig. So when I go into windows xp (now with sp2) it says there is a total space of 305 available and a unallocated space of 174 gig. How do I allocate the unused portion to the drive?

[cp]

http://www.d-silence.com/feature.php?id=246

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348

found with a large inet search engine...first three hits. everybody should (be able to) use a search engine from now and then.

[Edimahler]

Hi together,

I tried now over a week and also red the Sticky note and A LOT of discussions about (almost) my problem. But it still exists and I'm sure, you guys wanna help me.

I've a Travelmate 660 from Acer with a new 250 gig harddrive, only 137 gigs have been recognised. So made the Bios update (it now also supports 48 Bit LBA) and put Win XP prof SP2 on the computer. (Because of the last point I didn't change the registry.) The harddrive also supports 48 Bit LBA of course (it's an IDE, Western Digital).

In Windows I used p**tition M**ic to give my first partition the whole 250 gigs. (But with a tiny DOS-kindy prog (IDEINFO), there's still only seen 137gigs!)

Nevertheless, all seemed to be fine, but when I begun to copy back my old data to the harddrive the system broke down after about 110 gigs of data copied. A lot of different bluescreens were there... I couldn't repair the operating system, even not with the original CD and had to format / reinstall all again.

This happend now for 3 times. I also tried to update the chipset (Intel 855GM) and the "Intel 82801DBM Ultra ATA Storage Controller - 24CA" (under "IDE ATA/ATAPI-Controller" in the control panel). (There's also a "primary -" and "secondary IDE channel", but I can't find updates for this drivers.) Nothing changed.

I guess, that my system tries to write on the master boot record and also where windows is installed, instead of writing to the free space on the disc...

- Why am I able to give the harddrive the full 250 gigs?
- And why do I see still this 137 gigs with this tiny DOS prog named IDEINFO (and I'm sure, this prog tells the truth)...
- Where's the bottleneck in my system?
- Should I update the "primary IDE channel" driver, and where can I find it?

BTW: Neither the Acer support nor Intel (Chipset) couldn't help me...

[Edimahler]

c'mon guys, I know you are able to solve my prob...

The system crashed now (while trying to copy again as much data as possible on the harddrive) by 95.8GB already. But of course, the system begins to write to the second half of the HD already before the 137 gigs are filled. Just assumed...

[cp]

In Windows I used p**tition M**ic to give my first partition the whole 250 gigs.

if you would have read the sticky note on this section you would have known that the boot partition should reside in the bios known space.

(But with a tiny DOS-kindy prog (IDEINFO), there's still only seen 137gigs!)

because it just reads out the CHS parameters which store 28bit LBA values, maybe? it just doesn't have NATIVE support for 48bit LBA. it can't know because it doesn't ask. this is exactly the reason why there is no need for the bios to support 48bit LBA anyway. ALL modern OS ignore or even switch off the BIOS and query the hardware themselves.

So made the Bios update (it now also supports 48 Bit LBA)

if the BIOS would support 48bit LBA now, you would be able to see the full capacity of the HDD in the BIOS. if not, the BIOS doesn't support 48bit LBA natively (which doesn't hurt anyway).

Where's the bottleneck in my system?

when it comes to 48bit LBA: there is none regarding hardware or OS.

my advise:
install windows on a small boot partition. about 6GB should be more than enough. use the windows partition tool to create a new extended partition on the rest of the drive (~233GB - 6 GB = 227GB). after FULL (not quick!) formatting it with NTFS ofcourse, redirect the pagefile to this partition with a fixed size of 2*installed RAM. install all your programs on the huge partition ONLY (make a directory called programs or whatever name you like best).

if you want to know why one should use a setup like this i'll get a bit more into it. otherwise : have fun :)

[Edimahler]

Hi cp,

Thanks a lot for your post. Yes, of course I want to learn more about your special system of distributing the space to my lovely progs using it.

Firstly a few questions to your posting:
- Do I guess right to use the "partition tool" while installing windows (just at the beginning of the installation)?
- How can I "redirect the pagefile with a fixed size of 4GB" to this big partition? (I'm really a newbie concerning this point...)
- You're sure, my lovely computer will know afterwards my right size of the harddrive?

(BTW: Till now I always had a removable drive also in windows, when I installed the system on the whole disk space. Why was this?)

[cp]

- How can I "redirect the pagefile with a fixed size of 4GB" to this big partition? (I'm really a newbie concerning this point...)

a nice article about virtual memory and the pagefile with pictures :
http://www.petri.co.il/pagefile_optimization.htm

Do I guess right to use the "partition tool" while installing windows (just at the beginning of the installation)?

no. to create the partition where you're going to install windows will be created with the partitional tool during installation. the rest of the hdd will be left unconfigured until you (completely) boot into windows for the first time. then just use the inbuild partition tool. the articles below explain how to do it properly.

an article with pictures (already posted) :
http://www.d-silence.com/feature.php?id=246

the microsoft article (also already posted) :
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348

You're sure, my lovely computer will know afterwards my right size of the harddrive?

yes. ignore the BIOS. the inbuild partition tool that comes with windows will show the correct size. don't forget to install SP2 or SP3.

[Edimahler]

Hey, thanks for the quick answer again.

Will try to do your steps carefully.

BTW: There's already SP2 on the windows disc.


Other question: If I'll have some space-problems with the little partition for windows in advance - would it be possible to make the partition bigger, (up to about 128gigs?) later, or should I leave it as it is by only 6 gigs? You're right, 6 gigs will possibly be enough for the beginning. But when I want to activate hibernating (for 2 gigs of RAM) and such things, it perhaps could be useful to make bigger this partition...


Oh hell, I just started to install windows again. Already there he shows me my 131070 MB harddrive AND an unknown data storage medium!!
There's NO USB stcik inserted, nor a floppy drive. There's only the integrated DVD burner as slave on IDE. Could it be, my BIOS detects the DVD drive as "unknown data storage medium"?

(I'm sorry, I always have to translate the expressions to English, because of that some expressions sound perhaps a little strange?)

[Edimahler]

cp, I red your tip on petri.co about the pagefile. There's written the following:

Remember that using another partition on the same SYSTEM or DATA HD will not improve your system's performance at all. To do that you'll need a separate fast HD, preferably connected to a different controller.

Should I place the pagefile to the big partition anyway?

My first partition has now 7.81 gigs, the second one 120.18 gigs. There is NO more place on this harddrive displayed...! Why the hell does windows only see 128 gigs from the disc? (And yes, it IS in real a 250 gig one...)

And there's still an additional "removable medium" without medium...

[cp]

Should I place the pagefile to the big partition anyway?

yes, since the pagefile is fixed in size you should place it on the large partition. like that it won't interfere with the reduced size of the bootpartition. there are some programs that won't allow installation on another partition and windows puts a lot of garbage on the installation partition, too (and accidently forgets about it..).

regarding your hdd problem:
during installation kill all partitions on the disk and just create one boot partition. install windows. update to the latest service pack. install intel ide drivers (optional, but they have a nice information util, too). now use the inbuild partition manager to create the huge data partition.

[Edimahler]

Ok, did this now as you said. But I don't want to install SP3 for XP, because it should be still very buggy.

Still have the prob with the only displayed 128 gigs and a removable drive (Wechseldatenträger) which I don't know, where it's coming from...

Is it possible, so my big hard drive isn't compatible to my old notebook?

[cp]

SP3 is not buggy since it's just a collection of the patches released since SP2. you could install SP2 and all patches but it would be the same.

you can install the intel application accelerator, if you want:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_ ... 7&lang=eng

Is it possible, so my big hard drive isn't compatible to my old notebook?

no, since LBA48 is NOT a hardware feature. it's just a software thing. you could even hook up a 750GB pata hdd to a socket 7 intel 430FX mainboard with a pentium 1 100mhz and it will detect the full size of the hdd (not the BIOS obviously, but a modern OS will).

so it must be something else. did you try the manufacturer's hdd tool to check the settings of the disc?

you can also check the information provided by the disc with this tool:
http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/

it is possible to limit the reported size, but natively it should be set to it's original values.

if you've installed an image on the drive earlier you should zero LBA sector 3 with a sector editor (download the sector editor) :
http://www.roadkil.net/diskutils.html

[Edimahler]

Wow, thanks for this detailed informations again!

Will try this things this night and will post again later about the results...