OT: My 120 GB HD only shows up as 30 GB.. PLZ help
 

Hey guys.. long time no post for me.

kay so i have a 120 Gbyte drive. IBM. took it out of my old comp and put it in this other one that im just gonna use for internet.

the system is a older one, like a Celeron 400. I managed to get xp on there though (just upgraded it from 98, not new install)

i plop my IBM in there and it shows up as a 30 GB.
at one point a while back i put this drive in a real old system.. win 95, obviously it had that drive limitation thing. it partitioned it or something to make it fit.

i downloaded some ibm drive utility to try and restore the drive size, but it was dos based, it didnt do much..

is there a chance something can permantly change the size of my drive..

anyway any help on something i can get to force xp to see the full size of the drive.

thanks

tim

Re: OT: My 120 GB HD only shows up as 30 GB.. PLZ help
 

MEtaltim,
You may need to flash the BIOS in order for it to see that size drive. Older BIOS would only see up to 30GIG if I recall?

Right click MY COMPUTER
GO TO MANAGE
and go to LOGICAL DRIVES

See if it shows up at a 120 gig or a 30? You may have to repartition it to smaller partitions in order to use it. If it shows as a 30gig, but has the remaining as unpartitioned then you will need to format that other section. Understand?

See if that helps?

- Doc

Re: OT: My 120 GB HD only shows up as 30 GB.. PLZ
 

Some drives have jumpers than can LIMIT the size to about 30GB. Double check your jumper settings.

-BigJ

Re: OT: My 120 GB HD only shows up as 30 GB.. PLZ
 

both sound like something that could help.. im at work ill do that when i get home..

about the jumper settings.. this drive is weird it has FOUR different jumper settings for each position: master, slave, cable select, and whatever the other one is..

2 of each of these are under 15 PIN, then 2 for 16 PIN, whats the difference.

then if I look at lets say 15 pin, there are still 2 different settings for just slave, 2 for master, etc..

i cant tell what the difference is. when i was putting it in, it took about 3 different tries to get it right, turns out i only used one of the jumpers, not both..

so maybe ill try some other configurations.


I'll get back tomorrow..

thanks for replies
Tim

Re: OT: My 120 GB HD only shows up as 30 GB.. PLZ
 

The fourth option is a drive limit as Bubbaj pointed out.

In this case, I'd bet a large sum that's your problem.
If your included documentation is confusing, try looking the drive up on the manufacturers site. There is often a more detailed description on line.

Re: OT: My 120 GB HD only shows up as 30 GB.. PLZ
 

I believe the good Doctor is on the right path here:

a short time ago I fitted a 200 gig HD to my ageing PC, (Asus CUSL2-C BP mobo running a 1 gig P3). On the advice of a friend I flashed the BIOS to the latest version prior to fitting the new drive.

Back when my mobo was made the LBA settings weren't 48 bit so they simply can't address larger drive sizes. The latest BIOS is 48bit LBA compatible.

The BIOS I grabbed from Asus's website (v1014) is a beta but as the thing is so old, I dont think there'll ever be a full version. Needless to say, its working fine and I have had no unexpected glicthes, crashes or unreliability.

Dont know if this is your answer, but check the BIOS on your machine and see what BIT the LBA runs to.

Tim