help - Cannot see full size of drive

[Office]

Trying to use a WD 250 gb drive in a USB external enclosure. Tried two
different USB enclosues (different manufactures). The most it will see
is 128 gb. Obtained the Astra program which claims the motherboard
supports 48bit lba and the OS is XP Pro SP1. Verified the ATAPI file is
the 5.1.2600.1135 (xpsp2).

Motherboard is a Biostar M7-VIP KT333 with Athlon CPU. Have installed
the latest bios update and drivers for the motherboard.

Hard drive is set at master/single per instructions.

HELP !

 

[Guest]

Hi,

You may have to install SP2 before your system will recognize the maximum
size of your hard drive. Before installing SP2, check with the manufacturer
of your system to see if there are any updates you need before installing
SP2. Also, be sure that your system is free of any virus's or spyware.

 

[Jim]

Trying to use a WD 250 gb drive in a USB external enclosure. Tried two
different USB enclosues (different manufactures). The most it will see
is 128 gb. Obtained the Astra program which claims the motherboard
supports 48bit lba and the OS is XP Pro SP1. Verified the ATAPI file is
the 5.1.2600.1135 (xpsp2).

Motherboard is a Biostar M7-VIP KT333 with Athlon CPU. Have installed
the latest bios update and drivers for the motherboard.

Hard drive is set at master/single per instructions.

HELP !

There is a registry key that needs to be changed to use the full capacity of
the drive. Strange to say, but the installation software from my WD drive
set the value.
Jim

 

[Jim]

Trying to use a WD 250 gb drive in a USB external enclosure. Tried two
different USB enclosues (different manufactures). The most it will see
is 128 gb. Obtained the Astra program which claims the motherboard
supports 48bit lba and the OS is XP Pro SP1. Verified the ATAPI file is
the 5.1.2600.1135 (xpsp2).

Motherboard is a Biostar M7-VIP KT333 with Athlon CPU. Have installed
the latest bios update and drivers for the motherboard.

Hard drive is set at master/single per instructions.

HELP !

Didn't the WD install software set the registry key that enables more than
137 GB? What does WD say about your problem?
Jim

 

[CS]

Trying to use a WD 250 gb drive in a USB external enclosure. Tried two
different USB enclosues (different manufactures). The most it will see
is 128 gb. Obtained the Astra program which claims the motherboard
supports 48bit lba and the OS is XP Pro SP1. Verified the ATAPI file is
the 5.1.2600.1135 (xpsp2).

Motherboard is a Biostar M7-VIP KT333 with Athlon CPU. Have installed
the latest bios update and drivers for the motherboard.

Hard drive is set at master/single per instructions.

HELP !

I'm not familiar with that board but I found several references and
reviews of it on the web. Lots of specs. I did not see anywhere in
the specs that the board supported 48bit LBA. But that doesn't mean
it won't. Anyway try.....

Going into the BIOS setup program of the MB and make sure that the
48bit LBA option is turned on. Some MBs will default to LBA unless
you set them in the BIOS setup program.

I'm assuming here that you're partitioning and formatting the drive
prior to placing it in the USB 2.0 external enclosure. IOW, you have
it hooked up to one of your IDE ports on the MB first.

 

[Office]

Thanks for everyones help so far...

Jim.. Did not use the WD software. Visited the MS site which indicated
that as long as you are running SP1 and have the latest atapi driver no
additional software was needed. Had already e-mailed WD and the
response was that they would not answer any questions since the USB
enclosure was not one of thiers.

CS... Also researched the MB on the web, biostar site, etc. and did not
find any specific the board supported 48bit. As far as I could tell the
support was implied at the various sites since the board uses the via
kt333 chip. Also the Astra program reported the capabilities of the MB
as 48bit.
The MB is set up for all drives present to be LBA. Did not (yet) try to
cable the drive directly to the IDE cable. Have always tried eveything
while the drive was in the USB enclosure.

Other info that I forgot to mention. Even when the 250gb drive is seen
as 128gb...When formating from administrative tools / disk management it
will not complete the format. Using either the full or quick method. It
appears to bomb at the end when it tries to create the file system. If I
format the drive by going through My Computer, right-click, menu,
format, it will complete the format using either full or quick.

Again tks for the help

 

[CS]

Thanks for everyones help so far...

Jim.. Did not use the WD software. Visited the MS site which indicated
that as long as you are running SP1 and have the latest atapi driver no
additional software was needed. Had already e-mailed WD and the
response was that they would not answer any questions since the USB
enclosure was not one of thiers.

CS... Also researched the MB on the web, biostar site, etc. and did not
find any specific the board supported 48bit. As far as I could tell the
support was implied at the various sites since the board uses the via
kt333 chip. Also the Astra program reported the capabilities of the MB
as 48bit.
The MB is set up for all drives present to be LBA. Did not (yet) try to
cable the drive directly to the IDE cable. Have always tried eveything
while the drive was in the USB enclosure.

Other info that I forgot to mention. Even when the 250gb drive is seen
as 128gb...When formating from administrative tools / disk management it
will not complete the format. Using either the full or quick method. It
appears to bomb at the end when it tries to create the file system. If I
format the drive by going through My Computer, right-click, menu,
format, it will complete the format using either full or quick.

Again tks for the help

Suggestion:

I think you should try removing the drive from the enclosure, hook it
direct to the IDE port on the Motherboard, and then go into the CMOS
setup program to determine if it is "seen" as 250gb. If it is "seen"
as 250gb then you have other issue(s) that are preventing the complete
format of the drive. If it is not "seen" as 250gb, you can proceed to
install overlay software in order to utilize the entire drive. Right
now from reading your reply, I can't be sure that you have 48bit LBA
capability.

 

[Office]

Thanks for everyones help so far...

Jim.. Did not use the WD software. Visited the MS site which indicated
that as long as you are running SP1 and have the latest atapi driver no
additional software was needed. Had already e-mailed WD and the
response was that they would not answer any questions since the USB
enclosure was not one of thiers.

CS... Also researched the MB on the web, biostar site, etc. and did not
find any specific the board supported 48bit. As far as I could tell the
support was implied at the various sites since the board uses the via
kt333 chip. Also the Astra program reported the capabilities of the MB

Connected the drive direct to the secondary IDE chain and the BIOS does
see it as 250GB. Still had the same problems in XP, only seen as 128GB,
etc.

As I mentioned before the enclosure manufacture instructions specified
setting the hard drive to master/single. This was the setting used
while I had it attached as the sole drive on the ide chain.

Changed the setting to cable select while I still had it connected to
the ide chain and in XP the drive is now seen as 232GB (250GB).

Removed the drive and re-assembled the enclosure while leaving the drive
set to cable select. XP saw the drive as 232gb (250gb).

Zeroed the drive, re-partitioned to ensure it was not reading the prior
configuration made while the drive was on the ide chain. Drive
partitioned as 232gb. Tried to format useing the computer/diskmanagent
tools, both quick and full. Neither would format the drive. Same
symptons, got to the end of the format and bombed.

Had a thought and tried to format the drive by going through my
computer, right-click, format. Drive will format ok using either the
quick or full choice. Went back to the drive management tools and tried
both styles of format. Did not work. Tried the my computer format,
both styles and the drive formats fine.

Tried to verify data by doing multiple backups to the drive until it was
full using the XP backup with verify on. Did not encounter any errors.

Think it might be ok now. Thanks again for the help. Unresolved is the
reason I can format via my computer and not through disk management.

PS - Disk Management format will work on a 100gb drive

 

[CS]

Connected the drive direct to the secondary IDE chain and the BIOS does
see it as 250GB. Still had the same problems in XP, only seen as 128GB,
etc.

As I mentioned before the enclosure manufacture instructions specified
setting the hard drive to master/single. This was the setting used
while I had it attached as the sole drive on the ide chain.

Changed the setting to cable select while I still had it connected to
the ide chain and in XP the drive is now seen as 232GB (250GB).

Removed the drive and re-assembled the enclosure while leaving the drive
set to cable select. XP saw the drive as 232gb (250gb).

Zeroed the drive, re-partitioned to ensure it was not reading the prior
configuration made while the drive was on the ide chain. Drive
partitioned as 232gb. Tried to format useing the computer/diskmanagent
tools, both quick and full. Neither would format the drive. Same
symptons, got to the end of the format and bombed.

Had a thought and tried to format the drive by going through my
computer, right-click, format. Drive will format ok using either the
quick or full choice. Went back to the drive management tools and tried
both styles of format. Did not work. Tried the my computer format,
both styles and the drive formats fine.

Tried to verify data by doing multiple backups to the drive until it was
full using the XP backup with verify on. Did not encounter any errors.

Think it might be ok now. Thanks again for the help. Unresolved is the
reason I can format via my computer and not through disk management.

PS - Disk Management format will work on a 100gb drive

Great. Glad you got it working. Thanks for posting back and have a
Happy New Year!