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macdady808

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160 maxtor showing at 127 in XP

i hav used the maxtor BIG DRIVE utillity and the 160 still only shows as 127. what did i do wrong?
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CrazyOne
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How to Enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing Support for ATAPI Disk Drives in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013
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If your BIOS doesn't support drives of that size, you might need to update it. Just check if there's a bios update available. If your BIOS does support those drives, CrazyOnes link should solve your problem.

LucF
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macdady808

ASKER

i have an asus a7n8x http://usa.asus.com/prog/spec.asp?langs=09&m=A7N8X

i would think it supports it...

i did the hotfix that the microsoft page refeers to (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=b997cc5f-4483-4edc-a17e-6f659a033b0d&DisplayLang=en) and still shows as 127... why is mine showing as 127 when every place i read says 137?
Did you do everything in that link I posted? It could be that XP doesn't cooperate with BIG DRIVE utillity
bios is ver 1005
take a look at http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=A7N8X&Type=BIOS there are newer bios-updates available, take a look at them.

LucF
Look into your BIOS and see what size the drive has been detected as.
(Press F10, Del etc on POST Start up)
I suspect its showing as 127GB which will mean you will need to upgrade the BIOS as indicated above.

Cheers
Rodger
Upgrade of the BIOS may work but the one macdady808 has is only a few months old certainly if this system supports this size of disk the current BIOS should be able to see the full size of the disk. But then again... :)
>why is mine showing as 127 when every place i read says 137?
I have absolutely no idea, I only know a 127Gb limit. So what is everyone refering to? I even found the 137Gb on Microsoft technet. CrazyOne, do you know more about this?? You've been in the business way longer than I have (you're 50 as far as I know http:Q_20680953.html and I'm only 22 years old) lol! ;-)
btw... "maxtor BIG DRIVE utillity" why did you use it, have you checked disk manager if there's still room on your drive? Or if this drive still has no data on it, have you tried repartitioning it with Fdisk (wich can be found at every win98/ME bootdisk if you don't have one, get one from http://www.bootdisk.com)

LucF
Yeah that is the reason I made the comment about the BIG DRIVE utillity. I am not sure why macdady808 used it.
That's my point. Let's wait for macdady808 to return (he could be sleeping) we'll see what's going on.
heh, i would be doing all these things but its a system i built for a less computer litterate friend and i have to tell him every step, little worried on telling him how to flash bios.....

The big drive utillity is saposta solve problems like this... or thats what it says on the maxtor website
>>>The big drive utillity is saposta solve problems like this... or thats what it says on the maxtor website

Yeah but was it needed? I think this BIOS should see the whole drive without it.
but the big drive utillity was saposta solve the windows side of the problem.. where i dont think it is anymore. like i said i need to get the kid to check bios
>its a system i built for a less computer litterate friend and i have to tell him every step
Why don't you bring the system over to your place, and do it yourself, seems much safer to me.
>>>but the big drive utillity was saposta solve the windows side of the problem

Then you don't need it XP with SP1 will see full size of the disk.
>Then you don't need it XP with SP1 will see full size of the disk.
 
before i realized this

Hes at UF and im in Tampa soo its a good 4 hour drive, i think i would be able to walk him through it on the phone.

Im begning to think its something I did. I cant remember how formated the drive. I THINK i used the standard windows install fdisk, when i should have used partition magic or something. Does this sound like it would create this problem?
>I THINK i used the standard windows install fdisk
I don't think so, the "BIG DRIVE UTILITY" should partition this disk. But to be sure, check the disk manager to see if there's any unallocated space on the drive. If so, you can use a program like partition manager to resize the disk.
Try this

This is the disk manager that LucF is referring to

Start > Run diskmgmt.msc
Take a look at the drive and do what LucF said

If there is unallocate space right click on it and allocate it and have merge with the other partition.

If no unallocate delete the partiton. Reboot and then see if it sees the whole drive. If so use Disk Manager and right click on it and then create a partition and the format it.
127 "Real" GB are roughly 137 GB with the 1GB=1.000.000.000 system used by the hard drive manufacturers
Chribu, sorry to correct you, but 127 "Real" GB is roughly 133Gb, not 137....

p.s. macdady808, did you make any progress?
eh yea, the portion of his drive was just un partitioned. i had him format it ntfs but not assign it a drive letter or anything. whats the best way to merge it with the existing partition? was thinking run a defrag and then boot to partition magic and reassign or someting. im scared its gona mess every thing up and hes gona loose all his data.
You can't, not without a special card that you have to install that lets you have a drive larger then 127GB. (I have one installed on my PC here at work with a 160GB Maxtor).
This card allows you to bypass the Windows limit of 127GB, without it 127GB is the biggest a Single partition can be.
Format the rest of the drive as NTFS and 33MB and assign a drive letter so he can use it.
You will need to format the drive, install the special card (forgot exactly whats its called) and re-partition it as 160GB if he wants 1 single partition.
However, I would recommend you not do this, my drive has already crashed (but recovered with some loss of data) having been setup with 1 x 160GB partition.
I would recommend you partition his drive as 4 x 40GB partitions, I have a 160GB at home as well partitioned like this and it has been VERY reliable.
If you don't want to go to the effort of partitioning his drive like this (especially since he lives 4hrs away) then the 127GB + 33GB Option is the best and easiest and the quickest.

Cheers
Rodger
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Luc Franken
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asmodeusnz,
>You can't, not without a special card that you have to install that lets you have a drive larger then 127GB.
why post that comment 12 minutes after macdady808 posted that the full size of the drive is recognized now???
LucF i'm sorry but who is mistaken is you
137GB=137.000.000.000Byte
137.000.000.000Byte/1024/1024/1024=127,6 GB
So 137GB (decimal)=127GB (binary)
sorry, you're right, I forgot to devide by 1024 one more time (GB)
LucF, Did you read macdady808's Comment Properly? and my reply properly?
Getting the 160GB detected is the first step, then partitioning is the next......

>eh yea, the portion of his drive was just un partitioned. i had him format it ntfs but not assign it a drive letter or anything. whats the best way to merge it with the existing partition?<

My reply was in answer to the above question........

Your wrong about using Partition Magic as well, that cannot bypass the 127GB limit set by Windows.

Cheers
Rodger
oh boy :-(

every one with a diffrent answer

partition magic 8 --- http://www.partition-magic-download.com/ 
>Larger partition support
Support for partition sizes up to 160 GB

Even thow this might be able to help me, i think im gona go with Lucf and just have him use it as another drive as i too have lost data when resizeing a NTFS before.

thanks for all the help, case closed i guess
Macdady808, I suggested that first actually......please read my note above his, hence the points should be mine.............

Cheers
Rodger
asmodeusnz, I have never seen you comming with information about how the 160Gb drive can be recognized, and I think that was the main question.

LucF
dident know the points were soo valued

>Your wrong about using Partition Magic as well, that cannot bypass the 127GB limit set by Windows.

partition magic does support over 127 as noted in the link i posted
also, this talk of a special card? not needed.
macdady808, Glad your problem is solved ;-)
Macdady808,

The card IS needed for 1 single partition of 160GB which you were asking about.
It is one of the things you need to bypass the 127GB limit set by Windows, another is Partition Magic 8 as you pointed out (which I didn't know about because of the new version).

My point is that I suggested the 127GB + 33GB partition option first, the rules of EE state you should award the person who suggested the answer/solution FIRST, not SECOND as LucF did.

LucF, your comment below

>asmodeusnz, I have never seen you comming with information about how the 160Gb drive can be recognized, and I think that was the main question.

My first comment below dated 11/12/2003 01:18PM PST states:
Look into your BIOS and see what size the drive has been detected as.  
(Press F10, Del etc on POST Start up)
I suspect its showing as 127GB which will mean you will need to upgrade the BIOS as indicated above.

It wasn't until the 23rd that Macdady808 actually told us all that the drive was in fact being detected as 160GB, a fact that would have helped us all to know as I had said earlier....

>Getting the 160GB detected is the first step, then partitioning is the next......

Macdady808, all I ask is that you follow the EE rules......

Cheers
Rodger

>>The card IS needed for 1 single partition of 160GB which you were asking about.
Not true, I have a 160GB drive here, working fine partitioned as 160GB, what are you talking about, if the drive gets recognized by the motherboards IDE controller, why would there be any need for buying anothere PCI IDE controller card?? It does the same job in this case => recognizing and accessing the full drive.

Stop the point grubbling, you've just started answering questions, you should learn how this site works. If this question should be a split the other points should go to CrazyOne.

LucF
Well I was going to stay out of this but lets clarify a few things

A card is not needed for Windows to see the full 160 GB's. If the BIOS can see the full 160 then windows can see a 160GB partition this is a fact not fiction.

Secondly going through the posts asmodeusnz was roughly the first one to mention the 127+33 first but other comments prior to that hinted at doing that.

And I apologize I completely forgot about using the following utilites in XP and Win2000 to extend a partition into unallocated space. I did this the other day so I know it works.

A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;300415&Product=winxp

or the one from the Win2000 Resource kit
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325590&Product=win2000
LucF, How have you got your 160GB drive partitioned as 1 x 160GB partition???
What are you using to do that?
I have the same setup here, a 160GB HDD, but I'm using a controller card so it detects as 1 partition of 160GB.
We are running XP with SP1 here at work and we couldn't get the drive partitioned as anything more then 127GB, hence the reason why I suggested a card was needed, which is what I'm using now.

CrazyOne, see my above question, How does the 160GB get formatted as 1 partition?

My earlier point was that if the BIOS detects the drive as 160GB, (FIRST STEP) then you can only partiton it as 127GB + 33GB. (SECOND STEP)
I am not aware of any way to partition a drive of that size as 1 single 160GB partition without using the controller card I am using now.
An explanation would be most helpful thanks.

Cheers
Rodger


asmodeusnz,

I used the normal functions of windows to partition the drive, I'm booting from a 40GB drive and added this 160GB drive for extra storage.

>I am not aware of any way to partition a drive of that size as 1 single 160GB partition without using the controller card I am using now.
the only thing the controller card is different from the one on your motherboard is that it has a PCI interface. If the controller on the motherboard recognises the drive, no need for buying some IDE controller card.

I personally have a PCI IDE controller card in another system of mine wich doesn't support drives bigger than 8.2 GB so I could connect a 30Gb drive to that computer, it also gave me a big performance boost (ATA100 instead of ATA33)

You really have to understand that there's really no difference between a IDE controller on the motherboard and a PCI IDE controller (nowadays they're mainly used to connect more than 4 IDE devices to one computer)

Hope this explains a bit...

LucF
LucF, ok thanks.
I think I understand the controller card point you are trying to explain, but that means that there is no 127GB limit for XP??, or do you have to have SP1 as well??.

Are you saying that if the BIOS can detect the 160GB HDD (which mine obviously cannot here at work even though its a new Compaq), then you can partition it as 160GB if you are using XP with SP1, which is what my controller card is basically doing??

Cheers
Rodger
>>but that means that there is no 127GB limit for XP??, or do you have to have SP1 as well??
At the computer I have that drive I have SP1 (I always keep my OSses up-to-date ;-))
I don't know if it'll work on win2k, I really want to go back to win2k (CO knows why) I'm going to try that next week.

>>Are you saying that if the BIOS can detect the 160GB HDD ...... etc.
Yes, check the link CrazyOne gave:

How to Enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing Support for ATAPI Disk Drives in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013 

LucF
The 48 bit thing is most likely whats keeping you from a single > 127gig partition