==When is a 160GB Drive NOT a 160GB Drive!!!!!==

[Grzyb]

Hi All..........

The story so far.........

I fitted a brand new 160GB Hard Drive....[b:a223653ab3]Maxtor Model No.4G160J8[/b:a223653ab3] to my Computer. Everything went O.K. until I entered the Bios to configure it......Then [b:a223653ab3][i:a223653ab3]WHAMMY[/i:a223653ab3][/b:a223653ab3] Only comes up as 136GB.........

I have Updated the [b:a223653ab3][i:a223653ab3]BIOS[/i:a223653ab3][/b:a223653ab3] to the latest one on the EPOX Web Site for my MOBO which is a [b:a223653ab3][i:a223653ab3]EP-8K7A+[/i:a223653ab3][/b:a223653ab3]

I have since discovered that my BIOS doesn't support 48bit string addressing to enable recognition of Hard Drives greater than 136gb!!!! This is a copy of the reply I received from epox

[quote:a223653ab3]I am afraid that at present we do not have a BIOS with 48bit string
recognition for large HD over 136Gb for this particular mainboard. EPoX
Taiwan have been developing BIOS for many boards to do this, however as
yet we do not have one specifically for 8K7A/+. Please do bear with us
whilst we await this release[/quote:a223653ab3]

My options are as follows........

1) Purchase a PCI Promise ATA 133 Controller Card which is advertised in the U.K. at £60.00

2) Bite the bullet and use the Hard Drive as a 136gb without waiting for a BIOS Update.

3) Bite the bullet and use the Hard Drive as a 136gb and when the Bios Update does come, if at all, then upgrade it so that it recognises the extra space......

The way I see it is [b:a223653ab3][i:a223653ab3]Option 1[/i:a223653ab3][/b:a223653ab3] costs more money, can I justify the expense?....
[b:a223653ab3][i:a223653ab3]Option 2[/i:a223653ab3][/b:a223653ab3] I lose 24gb of Space................
[b:a223653ab3][i:a223653ab3]Option 3[/i:a223653ab3][/b:a223653ab3] What I am concerned about is that at the moment the BIOS is recognising the
drive at 136gb, if I were to format it and start putting Data on it, what
will happen if say a BIOS UPDATE becomes available with 48bit string
recognition for large HD over 136gb and the Drive is recognised as a
160gb..........Will the extra space i.e. the difference between 160gb and
136gb become available as "free" unused space which can be seen by
partitioning utilities such as Partition Magic 7.0 or will I have to
reformat the Drive to be able to utilize the extra space....I would hate to
have lose so much Data if I had to reformat!!!!!!!!............

Sorry about the length of the post, but I tried to give as much info as possible.......

All Suggestions and comments greatfully received...

[Crowdirt]

Hi Grzyb, this situation has occurred a number of times in the past. Hard Drive capacity exceeds what the MOBO/System supports. Ontrack had a Utility that you could use to Map the Drive Space so it all could be used. It was called Disk Manager...You may have to create more than one partition but that's not all that bad...

Have a look on Ontrack's website to see if they have something to offer..

[adams]

a little off the topic but let me see if i understand this correctly.

the promise card will take care of the bios limitation? because i have a 40gb and my bios won't support over 33gb.

[Grzyb]

[quote:b901af6ef6][i:b901af6ef6]Originally posted by Crowdirt [/i:b901af6ef6]
[b]Hi Grzyb, this situation has occurred a number of times in the past. Hard Drive capacity exceeds what the MOBO/System supports. Ontrack had a Utility that you could use to Map the Drive Space so it all could be used. It was called Disk Manager...You may have to create more than one partition but that's not all that bad...

Have a look on Ontrack's website to see if they have something to offer.. [/quote:b901af6ef6]

I've heard of these "Drive Overlay Software" are they any good?
What happens when say, in 3 months time there is a Bios Update and I apply it, will I have to format the drive? I'd hate to put alot of Data on it, only to lose it all in 3 months!!!!!!!

[Grzyb]

[quote:e085607472][i:e085607472]Originally posted by adams_73533 [/i:e085607472]
[b]a little off the topic but let me see if i understand this correctly.

the promise card will take care of the bios limitation? because i have a 40gb and my bios won't support over 33gb. [/quote:e085607472]

That's how I understand it..........I would need the Promise PC1 ATA 133 Controller for the full capacity of the new disk to be seen....

[Crowdirt]

Hi Grzyb, in the past the "Drive Overlay" can be left in place even though you make other updates to your computer. Eventually it could be removed when you are ready to redo your Hard Drive some time later on...

Check the Promise Controllers, they may have a maximum size limit too....

[Apples]

The hard drive is it ATA 133 or ATA100 if it is ATA133 then the PCI Promise ATA 133 Controller Card is the way to go.
If it is ATA100 the I might wait for a bios.
Epox are very slow at producing new bios for there boards.
I had to wait 6 months for a bios for my dual epox board to fix a winxp problem with shutdown.

Apples

[Bads]

Hello,

Go to the first option and buy a promise controller card

If in the futur you can update your Bios then the Promise card will be for another guy or another system

They make really good controller card and if it's a 133 controller, no problem to fit it in another system or selling this model of card is really easy

And you have all your space right now and not in 3 months

[Grzyb]

[quote:6449f260dd][i:6449f260dd]Originally posted by Crowdirt [/i:6449f260dd]
[b]Hi Grzyb, in the past the "Drive Overlay" can be left in place even though you make other updates to your computer. Eventually it could be removed when you are ready to redo your Hard Drive some time later on...

Check the Promise Controllers, they may have a maximum size limit too.... [/quote:6449f260dd]

The retail Maxtor 160gb Hard Drive ships with a Re-Badged Promise Controller so it should recognise the extra Capacity..........

Before I decide I'm going to borrow a Hard Disk from my mate.....10gb's or 20gb's and put it in my old Rig.......That has a limit of 8.4gb's from the Bios...........i'll format the space that can be seen then add some data and transfer the Hard Disk to my new system...........If all goes well it will see the extra space as free space and I can merge the partitions with PM7.0..........

If not then at least I've tried and it's the Promise Card!!!!!!!!!

Thanks for all your help and advice......

[Dave]

Years ago I swore to never again use a drive overlay and now they may be coming back to haunt me.
I used to run into all kinds of problems fixing my friends systems that had these damm things.

Keep in mind that if you use a drive overlay you are using a non-standard disk translation to access your hard drive. Several hard drive utilities will not work, or your going to need work-arounds to use them. Things like ghost, drive image, partition magic, etc.
There is only one sure fire way of removing an overlay, that is backing up everything to a smaller drive (that doesn't need an overlay) and then fdisk'ing and formating the drive. Even then, sometimes you have to zap or wipe the drive to remove the overlay from the fat table.
Following the manufactures instructions in removing the overlay from an existing drive full of data is not 100%, you still risk loosing everything.

Thats my opinion, take it or leave it.

This is what I would do, and you may want to try it in your experiment.
Manually set the partition to end before the BIOS limitation.
For your 8gig drive your testing, set the partition to end before the 1024'th cylinder boundry.
You stated 8.4GB as the limit, so your using something thats figuring a meg as 1000 instead of 1024. In that case, set the partition to end at 8001 MB (1019'th cylinder boundry. It's actually less than 8gigs using the actual count of 1MB=1024kb)

In other words, do not let fdisk set the partition to 100% of the drive because it can't properly see the whole thing.
Sacrifice a few extra megs and manually set the partition to end before that. Later, when you update the BIOS you can use PM to expand the partition and take less of a chance with partition errors.

As for the promise card, have no idea and I'm just guessing it won't work. Even if the card supports a drive that big I don't see what good it will do you if the BIOS can't get to it.

Best of luck
Dave