BIOS/CMOS Setup

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AAH

OS: WindowsXP Pro Ver2002 SP2
On an old computer the AMIBIOS Hiflex
Setup Utility Version 1.23(1999 American
Megatrennds) under AUTO
showing the capacity of hd 74.5 MG
as an 33.83 MG.
Will there be a problem to divide this 74.5MG
into TWO partitions C: and D: whereas the
capacity of 74.5 under Auto is still 33.83MG.
I thought under AUTO it should show the
correct capacity of 74.5 MG?

Any advice is appreciated?
 
See if there is a BIOS update for your model and apply that.

BTW: What is a MG? Are you meaning MB or GB?
 
Randem
Sorry it is GB




See if there is a BIOS update for your model and apply that.

BTW: What is a MG? Are you meaning MB or GB?
 
AAH said:
OS: WindowsXP Pro Ver2002 SP2
On an old computer the AMIBIOS Hiflex
Setup Utility Version 1.23(1999 American
Megatrennds) under AUTO
showing the capacity of hd 74.5 MG
as an 33.83 MG.
Will there be a problem to divide this 74.5MG
into TWO partitions C: and D: whereas the
capacity of 74.5 under Auto is still 33.83MG.
I thought under AUTO it should show the
correct capacity of 74.5 MG?

Any advice is appreciated?
Click to expand...

I suspect you have your hard disk jumpers set so that the visible capacity
is limited to 32 GBytes. And as Randem observed, there is no unit called
"MG". You most likely mean GB (Gigabytes).
 
AAH said:
OS: WindowsXP Pro Ver2002 SP2
On an old computer the AMIBIOS Hiflex
Setup Utility Version 1.23(1999 American
Megatrennds) under AUTO
showing the capacity of hd 74.5 MG
as an 33.83 MG.
Will there be a problem to divide this 74.5MG
into TWO partitions C: and D: whereas the
capacity of 74.5 under Auto is still 33.83MG.
I thought under AUTO it should show the
correct capacity of 74.5 MG?

Any advice is appreciated?
Click to expand...

If you tell us the brand and model number of disk drive,
we can tell you how to remove the "clip" 33GB jumper you've
installed on the hard drive. It is preventing the
full capacity of the disk from showing up.

There is a second possibility. If your motherboard is
old enough, it might not support large hard drives.

http://rma.asus.de/support/FAQ/faq076_32gb_ide_hdd.htm

http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

"and has a fix for the 32GB IDE harddisk limit
to support drives up to 128GB"

I don't have any motherboards that old, and those links
are just a few examples I've run into in the past.

Paul
 
Paul
The disk is:-
MAXTOR STM 380215A




AAH said:
OS: WindowsXP Pro Ver2002 SP2
On an old computer the AMIBIOS Hiflex
Setup Utility Version 1.23(1999 American
Megatrennds) under AUTO
showing the capacity of hd 74.5 MG
as an 33.83 MG.
Will there be a problem to divide this 74.5MG
into TWO partitions C: and D: whereas the
capacity of 74.5 under Auto is still 33.83MG.
I thought under AUTO it should show the
correct capacity of 74.5 MG?

Any advice is appreciated?
Click to expand...

If you tell us the brand and model number of disk drive,
we can tell you how to remove the "clip" 33GB jumper you've
installed on the hard drive. It is preventing the
full capacity of the disk from showing up.

There is a second possibility. If your motherboard is
old enough, it might not support large hard drives.

http://rma.asus.de/support/FAQ/faq076_32gb_ide_hdd.htm

http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

"and has a fix for the 32GB IDE harddisk limit
to support drives up to 128GB"

I don't have any motherboards that old, and those links
are just a few examples I've run into in the past.

Paul
 
Paul

This computer was manufactured about
9/10 years ago for Windows 98SE just
before the WinMe appearance.
The motherboard should be ok?


AAH said:
OS: WindowsXP Pro Ver2002 SP2
On an old computer the AMIBIOS Hiflex
Setup Utility Version 1.23(1999 American
Megatrennds) under AUTO
showing the capacity of hd 74.5 MG
as an 33.83 MG.
Will there be a problem to divide this 74.5MG
into TWO partitions C: and D: whereas the
capacity of 74.5 under Auto is still 33.83MG.
I thought under AUTO it should show the
correct capacity of 74.5 MG?

Any advice is appreciated?
Click to expand...

If you tell us the brand and model number of disk drive,
we can tell you how to remove the "clip" 33GB jumper you've
installed on the hard drive. It is preventing the
full capacity of the disk from showing up.

There is a second possibility. If your motherboard is
old enough, it might not support large hard drives.

http://rma.asus.de/support/FAQ/faq076_32gb_ide_hdd.htm

http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/k6plus.htm

"and has a fix for the 32GB IDE harddisk limit
to support drives up to 128GB"

I don't have any motherboards that old, and those links
are just a few examples I've run into in the past.

Paul
 
AAH said:
Paul
The disk is:-
MAXTOR STM 380215A
Click to expand...

PDF page 31 here, shows no jumper for "clipping" the capacity. Notice they're
only using the leftmost two jumper positions. In some cases, you'd expect
the third jumper position to be the "clip" jumper (i.e. pins 3 and 4).
At least, make sure any jumpers you are using, are in the leftmost two positions.
Jumper leftmost is master. No jumpers is slave. Jumper second from left
is Cable Select. Inserting a second jumper, on pins 3 and 4, in addition
to any other jumpers, might clip the capacity to 33GB, but the manual
does not confirm that function in this case.

http://www.seagate.com/staticfiles/support/disc/manuals/maxtor/100435213b.pdf

As for your motherboard, I have a motherboard from roughly the same
year, and it has a 128GB limit. And I only got the max value that
high, after a BIOS update. The problem could be related to the
BIOS and the era of the motherboard. I thought the motherboard might
not start properly, if a too-big drive was connected ? I don't know
the answer to that, as to what symptoms to expect if the motherboard
doesn't support big drives.

Paul
 
Another way to get "big disk support", is to plug in a PCI IDE
card. The card must support a high enough version of the
ATA/ATAPI standard, in order to support large disks (like >128GB).
Cards of that type, will usually have a BIOS chip on it as well,
and the BIOS chip provides Extended INT 0x13 boot support.
The exception to that, is some Promise controller cards,
where the BIOS is hidden inside the main chip. If you have
a Promise IDE card of some sort, try connecting the drive
to that, then see what capacity is reported. You may need
a driver for the Promise IDE card, to finish the job.

It's hard to find good cards now, for this purpose. This
one uses an ITE 8212F chip, and has room for two ribbon
cables on the connectors.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158081

And this card uses a VT 6421 family chip. My previous motherboard
used similar technology and seemed to work OK. If using the
SATA ports on this card, you'd insert the "Force 150" jumper
on the back of the hard drive, as the ports only run 150MB/sec.
There is one ribbon cable connector, and that is what you'd want
to use for your current problem.

I have Promise Ultra133 TX2 cards here for this purpose, but
they are no longer for sale new.

So that is another way to fix it, if this is a motherboard + BIOS
problem.

Paul
 
Paul
Thanks for your clarifications.
I forgot to mention it that as the BIOS
shows the capacity as 33.825 (it does not
say GB or MB) but the explorer and shell utilites indicate the correct
capacity
74.5GB of the disk.
The property tab of C: is also 74.5GB.

Does this mean that any space in access
of 33.825GB is Unusable?
If the disk is fully usuable in its present
situation then leave it as is the moment?



Another way to get "big disk support", is to plug in a PCI IDE
card. The card must support a high enough version of the
ATA/ATAPI standard, in order to support large disks (like >128GB).
Cards of that type, will usually have a BIOS chip on it as well,
and the BIOS chip provides Extended INT 0x13 boot support.
The exception to that, is some Promise controller cards,
where the BIOS is hidden inside the main chip. If you have
a Promise IDE card of some sort, try connecting the drive
to that, then see what capacity is reported. You may need
a driver for the Promise IDE card, to finish the job.

It's hard to find good cards now, for this purpose. This
one uses an ITE 8212F chip, and has room for two ribbon
cables on the connectors.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815158081

And this card uses a VT 6421 family chip. My previous motherboard
used similar technology and seemed to work OK. If using the
SATA ports on this card, you'd insert the "Force 150" jumper
on the back of the hard drive, as the ports only run 150MB/sec.
There is one ribbon cable connector, and that is what you'd want
to use for your current problem.

I have Promise Ultra133 TX2 cards here for this purpose, but
they are no longer for sale new.

So that is another way to fix it, if this is a motherboard + BIOS
problem.

Paul
 
AAH said:
Paul
Thanks for your clarifications.
I forgot to mention it that as the BIOS
shows the capacity as 33.825 (it does not
say GB or MB) but the explorer and shell utilites indicate the correct
capacity
74.5GB of the disk.
The property tab of C: is also 74.5GB.

Does this mean that any space in access
of 33.825GB is Unusable?
If the disk is fully usuable in its present
situation then leave it as is the moment?
Click to expand...

I don't know the answer to that. It might mean, if
this is your boot disk, and the boot partition is
positioned above the 33GB mark, it might not work.
That is the only concern that comes to mind.

I thought on some other motherboards, when they didn't
support >33GB, the motherboard could not complete POST
and boot. Since your system is working, and Windows
reports the correct amount, that sounds pretty good to me.
The only concern, would be if you placed a partition
that boots, above 33GB.

Paul
 
Paul
Thank you very much for your comments.
The computer is at the momennt with my
friend who is checking it.
He thinks that 33.825 is not a straight
GB or MB figure but 74.5GB devided
by clusters/cycles or something like that
of which I am not familiar.

The WinXP boots ok. No problem with
or during post. It is all C: boot partition.

I need to partition the disk into C: 20GB
and the rest D: for storage. I do not want
to take risk to loose my stuff.

Once again thank you very much for your
very valuable comments and clarifications.

AAH said:
Paul
Thanks for your clarifications.
I forgot to mention it that as the BIOS
shows the capacity as 33.825 (it does not
say GB or MB) but the explorer and shell utilites indicate the correct
capacity
74.5GB of the disk.
The property tab of C: is also 74.5GB.

Does this mean that any space in access
of 33.825GB is Unusable?
If the disk is fully usuable in its present
situation then leave it as is the moment?
Click to expand...

I don't know the answer to that. It might mean, if
this is your boot disk, and the boot partition is
positioned above the 33GB mark, it might not work.
That is the only concern that comes to mind.

I thought on some other motherboards, when they didn't
support >33GB, the motherboard could not complete POST
and boot. Since your system is working, and Windows
reports the correct amount, that sounds pretty good to me.
The only concern, would be if you placed a partition
that boots, above 33GB.

Paul
 
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