old bios and bigger hdd's

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

mikele wrote:
> hello,
>
> I'm having serious problems with connecting 30 gb hard drive to my
> aging thinkpad 600. It's generally seen as 20 gb size drive by DOS
> FDISK. What's really odd linux cfdisk recognizes only remaining 9 gb
> disk size. The worst thing is that any OS refuses to install - windows
> crashes with BSOD while loading partmgr.sys.
> Could it be caused by old BIOS (circa 1999)?

Update the BIOS!

Then FDISK the HD and wipe all partitions, then start over again.

Regards,

James

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"mikele" <mikele@irc.pl> wrote in message news:ce1c5581.0504231121.3bd7a0e0@posting.google.com...
Date: 23 Apr 2005 12:21:36 -0700

> Update the BIOS!
> Then FDISK the HD and wipe all partitions, then start over again.
> Regards,
> James

Guess what James - I've just done it - got the latest BIOS and
the problem persists What's even odd I've attached this 30gb
drive to my desktop computer and it works like charm! Any clue?

Yup, it sounds like the BIOS doesn't support 30GB HD. Which is odd
since if there is a problem, it is usually at 32GB or larger for
that era machine.

All is not lost though. And while I really hate these things. But
most manufactures of hard drives also have a software program to
fool the BIOS to see the whole drive. So you might want to check
that one out.

The reason why I hate them is because if you use it in another
computer that doesn't need it, well I don't trust it. Also software
like Partition Magic seems to have trouble with this stuff as well.
I almost lost the data on two different hard drives. Had taken about
two days each time to pull everything back again. What a nightmare!




Cheers!


__________________________________________________
Bill (using a Toshiba 2595XDVD under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

"mikele" <mikele@irc.pl> wrote in message news:ce1c5581.0504261328.5c72e4c@posting.google.com...
Date: 26 Apr 2005 14:28:44 -0700

Bill, great thanks for your help! I tried that "change
capacity" feature but with no success- it was still seen as 20
GB. Until, I came up with this solution totally out of blue:
changed my hdd's jumpers to DRIVE1 (slave?), booted to fdisk
which saw no active partition. Then removed jumpers (making it
DRIVE0=master), once again loaded fdisk, but this time it did
see 28.xx GB ! How can you explain that? Best regards, Mike

Hi Mike... Well that removing jumper makes it more puzzling for
sure! As it would more sense if you needed the jumper to make it a
Master. As this could easily be explained by a poor connection. And
often unplugging and re-plugging things back in again fixes many
problems, believe it or not. <grin>

But no jumper... well I do know some drives uses electronically
writable chips (EEPROM) to store the firmware for the drive. And if
the EEPROM was confused there for some reason until you changed it
to a Slave and then back to a Master had reset it once again.

Some drives also has a jumper to add or remove large hard drive
support. This is for those BIOS that won't normally support them
without this option. Which could be another reason to explain what
happened. As maybe this jumper got bumped and kicked it into gear
again. Otherwise I'm running out of ideas. But at least it working
now. And that's a good thing! <grin>






Cheers!


________________________________________________________
Bill (using a HP Pavilion AMD 1.2GHZ under Windows 2000)
-- written and edited within WordStar 5.0

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

On Thu, 28 Apr 2005 22:18:25 -0500, Matthew Carrick wrote:

>I seem to recall FAT32 can't be done on drives over 30 GIG

Maximum size of a Fat32 partition is 2 Terabyte or 2048 GB.


Lars
Stockholm
http://web.telia.com/~u84406120/

Archived from groups: comp.sys.laptops (More info?)

Barry Watzman <WatzmanNOSPAM@neo.rr.com> wrote in
news:42741F49.9070103@neo.rr.com:

> No, your recollection ("FAT32 can't be done on drives over 30 GIG" ) is
> incorrect.
>
>
> Matthew Carrick wrote:
>
>> "BillW50" <BillW50@aol.kom> wrote in
>> news:2qMbe.1592$gd5.1409@newssvr12.news.prodigy.com:
>>
>>
>>>"mikele" <mikele@irc.pl> wrote in message
>>>news:ce1c5581.0504261328.5c72e4c@posting.google.com... Date: 26 Apr
>>>2005 14:28:44 -0700
>>>
>>> Bill, great thanks for your help! I tried that "change
>>> capacity" feature but with no success- it was still seen as 20
>>> GB. Until, I came up with this solution totally out of blue:
>>> changed my hdd's jumpers to DRIVE1 (slave?), booted to fdisk
>>> which saw no active partition. Then removed jumpers (making it
>>> DRIVE0=master), once again loaded fdisk, but this time it did
>>> see 28.xx GB ! How can you explain that? Best regards, Mike
>>>
>>>Hi Mike... Well that removing jumper makes it more puzzling for
>>>sure! As it would more sense if you needed the jumper to make it a
>>>Master. As this could easily be explained by a poor connection. And
>>>often unplugging and re-plugging things back in again fixes many
>>>problems, believe it or not. <grin>
>>>
>>>But no jumper... well I do know some drives uses electronically
>>>writable chips (EEPROM) to store the firmware for the drive. And if
>>>the EEPROM was confused there for some reason until you changed it
>>>to a Slave and then back to a Master had reset it once again.
>>>
>>>Some drives also has a jumper to add or remove large hard drive
>>>support. This is for those BIOS that won't normally support them
>>>without this option. Which could be another reason to explain what
>>>happened. As maybe this jumper got bumped and kicked it into gear
>>>again. Otherwise I'm running out of ideas. But at least it working
>>>now. And that's a good thing! <grin>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> I seem to recall FAT32 can't be done on drives over 30 GIG - is this
>> the problem perhaps?
>>
>> regards,
>>
>> MSC
>>
>

Oops! Never mind . . . !

MSC

--
matthew.carrick@myfingergmail.com

If you wish to send private email
please pull my finger . . . thanks!