Old Dell Latitude C640 with a mini IDE -> SATA converter, problems with HDD

[cocus]

Hello everyone! This is my first post.
As the title says, I have a really old Laptot, which is slow as hell due the crappy hard drive it has.
Some time ago I've done a small modification to the connector of the "mini ide caddy" to attach an IDE hard drive.
It's really "redneck" since it requires an external PSU for the 12V, but it worked out nice.
Also, the laptop is really falling to pieces, so I'm trying to desing an "AIO" from it, but thats another story.
Well, so the "modification" of the caddy connector to an IDE cable worked out good, but I've tried a IDE->SATA adapter with a 160GB hard drive.
The BIOS of the laptop actually detects 137.1GB since it doesn't allow more space (LBA issue). However thats not the main issue, since I don't really care about the space.
I've installed Windows XP in there, and everyting seems to be fine. The installer has also detected the full drive size (160GB).
Once the "non graphical" part is done, it restarts, but it doesn't boot up.
It says "Disk Read Error. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart".

I've tried installing it againg, but this time in a partition of 137GB, but sadly, same thing occurs.

I'm running out of ideas, since the converter worked out really nice in other ocassions (mostly trying to speed up old computers),
and the "redneck" adapter works just fine with an IDE hard drive (in fact, it's working with one right now)

Does anybody knows what I'm doing incorrectly? Or maybe this kind of stuff won't work in such scenario?

Thanks!

 

[Paperdoc]

Oddly, the Partition size may be your issue. It is correct to say that the HDD is really 160 GB, but the BIOS detects 137 GB. But that is only IF you define the "GB" to mean 1,000,000,000 bytes. The problem is that M$ and Windows define "GB" to mean 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes. Using that definition, the maximum size Win XP (in its original version) can handle is 137 / 1.073741824 = 127.59 of these "GB". (The reason for this is that the original version of Win XP with no Service Packs installed did not have a feature called "48-bit LBA Support", and many old BIOS's also lacked that support.)

So, do a new Install again, but this time tell it to make the Partition only 128 GB. That's talking Windows language. That should allow Windows to deal with the new Partition properly.

By the way, do not ever try to use the unused Unallocated Space for another Partition while you're still using an old Win XP, or in this old laptop that seems not to have 48-bit LBA Support in BIOS. Under some conditions, doing so could over-write important data at the start of your HDD and destroy it.

As an aside, I used a handy trouble-preventer for exactly this problem years ago. I had to replace an old HDD in an old system with a BIOS that did not have that 48-bit LBA Support, so I knew I had to limit the use of the HDD as above. But the smallest new HDD I could buy was 160 GB, just like yours. I bought a Seagate unit and used a special feature of their HDD's that was available by using their Seatools disk diagnostic utility. There is a tool in there that allows you to tell the HDD to set itself so that it limits itself to a specified size, and will tell the outside world that IS its true size. You specify that by setting the maximum number of of Logical Addresses it can use, and that is 2^28, because the old LBA system used only 28 binary bits (not 48) for the Logical Block Address. That number is 268,435,456. Given that one Block or Sector holds 512 bytes, that comes to 137,438,953,472 bytes (look familiar?), or 128.00 of the Windows definition of "GB". So doing that BEFORE using the HDD or installing anything on it makes it impossible to try to use any space above the 128 GB limit.

I do not know if this is still a feature in current Seagate HDD's. And I do not know if any other manufacturer puts this feature into any of their HDD units, or how to use it if they do.

 

[cocus]

Oddly, the Partition size may be your issue. It is correct to say that the HDD is really 160 GB, but the BIOS detects 137 GB. But that is only IF you define the "GB" to mean 1,000,000,000 bytes. The problem is that M$ and Windows define "GB" to mean 1024 x 1024 x 1024 bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes. Using that definition, the maximum size Win XP (in its original version) can handle is 137 / 1.073741824 = 127.59 of these "GB". (The reason for this is that the original version of Win XP with no Service Packs installed did not have a feature called "48-bit LBA Support", and many old BIOS's also lacked that support.)

So, do a new Install again, but this time tell it to make the Partition only 128 GB. That's talking Windows language. That should allow Windows to deal with the new Partition properly.

By the way, do not ever try to use the unused Unallocated Space for another Partition while you're still using an old Win XP, or in this old laptop that seems not to have 48-bit LBA Support in BIOS. Under some conditions, doing so could over-write important data at the start of your HDD and destroy it.

As an aside, I used a handy trouble-preventer for exactly this problem years ago. I had to replace an old HDD in an old system with a BIOS that did not have that 48-bit LBA Support, so I knew I had to limit the use of the HDD as above. But the smallest new HDD I could buy was 160 GB, just like yours. I bought a Seagate unit and used a special feature of their HDD's that was available by using their Seatools disk diagnostic utility. There is a tool in there that allows you to tell the HDD to set itself so that it limits itself to a specified size, and will tell the outside world that IS its true size. You specify that by setting the maximum number of of Logical Addresses it can use, and that is 2^28, because the old LBA system used only 28 binary bits (not 48) for the Logical Block Address. That number is 268,435,456. Given that one Block or Sector holds 512 bytes, that comes to 137,438,953,472 bytes (look familiar?), or 128.00 of the Windows definition of "GB". So doing that BEFORE using the HDD or installing anything on it makes it impossible to try to use any space above the 128 GB limit.

I do not know if this is still a feature in current Seagate HDD's. And I do not know if any other manufacturer puts this feature into any of their HDD units, or how to use it if they do.

Hello Paperdoc, thanks for your reply. First of all, this drive is a Western Digital, and I couldn't find any kind of tools for that (http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=603&lang=en). Also, it doesn't have the jumpers option to limit that size.

And the other thing I'll like to ask you, since Windows only asks for MB when installing, do I have to use 1024*128 or 1000*128?
Also, I'll not use the unasinged space as you say!

Thanks!

 

[Paperdoc]

If Windows asks you to specify the Partition Size in MB, tell it about 131,000. Say what?

Well, by Window's way of defining things, 1 MB is 1024 *1024 = 1,048,576 bytes. The 28-bit LBA limit is 268,435,456 Sectors or 137,438,953,472 bytes. Divide that by 1,048,576 and you get 131,072 of those MB. (Converting those MB to GB means dividing that by 1024, to get 128.000 GB.)

 

[cocus]

If Windows asks you to specify the Partition Size in MB, tell it about 131,000. Say what?

Well, by Window's way of defining things, 1 MB is 1024 *1024 = 1,048,576 bytes. The 28-bit LBA limit is 268,435,456 Sectors or 137,438,953,472 bytes. Divide that by 1,048,576 and you get 131,072 of those MB. (Converting those MB to GB means dividing that by 1024, to get 128.000 GB.)

Yes, I've selected a little bit less (which I've calculated from 1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes => 137 GB = 137,000,000,000 bytes, and then translated to M$ MBs gives something like 130,653).
Sorry for the delay, but XP takes a loooong way to copy those files. Also, USB booting is not available in the BIOS, so, back again with 24X CDs (crappy CDROM drive also!)
Same error!

Previous partition was 121,000MB, way less of our mark. Windows XP setup couldn't detect which filesystem it was, so there is something overwriting the first sectors as you say, but it's still weird since the partition is really smaller than our limit.

I've ran out of ideas. What do you suggest?

 

[Paperdoc]

If you are re-Installing Win XP on the HDD, after you boot from the Install CD the first step is to select which HDD to Install to, of course. The next step should be to Delete any and all existing Partitions so you have a truly empty HDD. THEN proceed with the Install, setting the Partition size as discussed. This way the old Partition Table will be wiped clean and re-written with data your system can handle.

 

[cocus]

If you are re-Installing Win XP on the HDD, after you boot from the Install CD the first step is to select which HDD to Install to, of course. The next step should be to Delete any and all existing Partitions so you have a truly empty HDD. THEN proceed with the Install, setting the Partition size as discussed. This way the old Partition Table will be wiped clean and re-written with data your system can handle.

Yes, thats exactly how I'm doing the process. I might try creating the partition with a Windows 7 DVD using partmgr and then installing XP on it without touching the partitions.
Still, this error is really annoying me.
Don't you think the IDE -> SATA converter might be failling for this setup? Maybe some command cannot be executed, or something like that.

Thanks again.