Asus CUV4X-C + Seagate 160GB

[Luke Skywalker]

Hi

I just bought a 160GB IDE Seagate Barracuda to connect to an
older P3 with an Asus CUV4X-C motherboard, and the BIOS only reports
8GB. FWIW, the BIOS was flashed to the latest version available
(1007).

Does someone know if those big drives we now have are reserved to more
recent PCs?

Thank you
Luke.

PS: Asus' www isn't working too well right now, hence my asking here :

http://www.asus.com/support/errorpage/servererror.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/support/support.aspx

Server Error in '/support' Application.

..Net ;-)

 

[Beemer Biker]

Hi

I just bought a 160GB IDE Seagate Barracuda to connect to an
older P3 with an Asus CUV4X-C motherboard, and the BIOS only reports
8GB. FWIW, the BIOS was flashed to the latest version available
(1007).

Does someone know if those big drives we now have are reserved to more
recent PCs?

Thank you
Luke.

PS: Asus' www isn't working too well right now, hence my asking here :

http://www.asus.com/support/errorpage/servererror.aspx?aspxerrorpath=/support/support.aspx

Server Error in '/support' Application.

.Net ;-)

Possibly the beta bios handles it
http://www.asus.com.tw/support/download/item.aspx?ModelName=CUV4X-C&Type=Latest
i have a CUV4X-D and it handled a 250gb over USB. If running windows xp or
2k be sure to enable 48bit addressing or you will corrupt the drive. I think
RH9 linux also needs a kernel patch for 48bit addressing. You wont know for
sure till you get past 128gb and files get corrupted. Search for "large
drive enabler" or something like that at www.maxtor.com dont need to have a
maxstor as the program just patches the registery.

 

[Luke Skywalker]

Possibly the beta bios handles it

Thx a bunch. That did it.

For those struggling with the same issue, here's the procedure:

1. From Matrox's support section, download and run its "Big Drive
Enabler" to prepare Windows to accept bigger drives (to enable 48bit
addressing.) Reboot.

2. Use FreeDOS to build yourself a basic bootable DOS floppy, ie. no
memory manager like HIMEM.SYS or EMM386.SYS

3. From Asus' site, download the latest BIOS for your motherboard,
even if it's marked as Beta (I used 1008.003), along with the flasher
utility AFLASH.EXE

4. Connect the new drive to your PC, and boot with the floppy.

5. Save the current BIOS to the floppy, and flash it with the new BIOS
you downloaded. Reboot.

6. Boot with your favorite disk imager. I used Drive Image 2002, but
there are several alternatives.

7. Copy the old disk onto the new one. If you have more than one
partition, it's up to you if you wish to keep the same ratio or if you
want to use some of the extra free space on the new disk for something
else.

8. Make sure that the boot partition on the new drive is marked as
Active and is set as Master, unplug the old drive, and reboot.

Done

Thx again
Luke.

 

[Paul]

Thx a bunch. That did it.

For those struggling with the same issue, here's the procedure:

1. From Matrox's support section, download and run its "Big Drive
Enabler" to prepare Windows to accept bigger drives (to enable 48bit
addressing.) Reboot.

2. Use FreeDOS to build yourself a basic bootable DOS floppy, ie. no
memory manager like HIMEM.SYS or EMM386.SYS

3. From Asus' site, download the latest BIOS for your motherboard,
even if it's marked as Beta (I used 1008.003), along with the flasher
utility AFLASH.EXE

4. Connect the new drive to your PC, and boot with the floppy.

5. Save the current BIOS to the floppy, and flash it with the new BIOS
you downloaded. Reboot.

6. Boot with your favorite disk imager. I used Drive Image 2002, but
there are several alternatives.

7. Copy the old disk onto the new one. If you have more than one
partition, it's up to you if you wish to keep the same ratio or if you
want to use some of the extra free space on the new disk for something
else.

8. Make sure that the boot partition on the new drive is marked as
Active and is set as Master, unplug the old drive, and reboot.

Done

Thx again
Luke.

Before filling the disk with valuable data, make sure that
Windows truly is 48bit LBA ready. Find a 1GB sized test file,
and duplicate it many times, until all partitions on the 160GB
disk are full. I then use a checksum program (you could use
md5sum, for example) and run it against all the copies of the
same file, and verify they are the same.

The problem you are testing for, is address rollover at the
128GB mark. That is 128GB binary. If 48 bit addressing is
not being used by either the OS or the hardware, then a
write to 128GB + one sector, will actually write to sector
zero. And writing near the origin of the disk, will trash
the file system. That is what happens if your install is
not done correctly.

So, do some kind of test on the disk first, to make sure the
disk is really ready for valuable files. Don't destroy your
old disk image, until the new disk is verified.

After doing the disk test, reboot the computer, and see if
any partitions have disappeared.

HTH,
Paul

 

[Luke Skywalker]

Before filling the disk with valuable data, make sure that
Windows truly is 48bit LBA ready.

Thx a lot for the tip. This is pretty scary :-( Is there a utility
from either MS, Asus, or Seagate that could perform this test instead
of going through the procedure you gave?

I'll google to understand why this is even a problem to begin with
(too old motherboard?)

Thx again
Luke.

 

[Paul]

Thx a lot for the tip. This is pretty scary :-( Is there a utility
from either MS, Asus, or Seagate that could perform this test instead
of going through the procedure you gave?

I'll google to understand why this is even a problem to begin with
(too old motherboard?)

Thx again
Luke.

It is the difference between 26 bit addressing mode and 48 bit
addressing mode. Imagine an address that uses all 26 bits, like
11 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111 1111. Now, try to make that hardware
write to one sector past that number (which would be the
128GB location plus one sector). All the digits become zero,
and the carry bit is dropped. The hardware gets
00 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000, and the first sector
of the disk is now corrupted. If the path to the hardware
only supports 26 of the sector address bits, then the "rollover"
happens at the 128GB (binary) mark.

That is how it happens.

I have read one account of someone who used their large
disk, and lost all their files about 3 months after they
started using the disk. Based on the description of the
symptoms, it would seem the user had just crossed the
128GB mark.

You could accelerate the test, by positioning a partition,
so that the 128GB mark falls within a small partition.
Filling that partition alone, will cross the 128GB mark,
and reduce your test time. So, say you position a
partition at 127GB (binary, mind you, be careful of
the math) and the partition is 2GB long. Then, you
would only have to copy 2GB worth of files, to test
the crossing of the magic address.

The way the disk drive manufacturers calculate gigabytes,
the magic sector address works out to 137GB in decimal
gigabytes (10**9 bytes = 1GB). If you count a gigabyte
as 1024x1024x1024, then the magic mark becomes 128GB
or 2**37 bytes. A sector contains 512 bytes or 2**11.
2**37/2**11 = 2**26, the 26 bit sector address.

Testing the whole disk is easier than figuring out
how to set up the partitions

HTH,
Paul

 

[Luke Skywalker]

Testing the whole disk is easier than figuring out
how to set up the partitions

Thx again for the warning. I'll try to do this over the we and see how
it goes.

Luke.