Large Hard Drives

[Doug]

Hi,

I recently purchased a 160GB hard drive only to find out that Windows XP
(without SP1) will only recognize hard drives as large as 137GB. I'm not
entirely sure at this point if the updated BIOS I put on this Dell Dimension
8100 will support larger than 137GB hard drives or not, but lets assume for
the moment that it will. (I know, I shouldn't be assuming anything)
Anyway, I read on the Western Digital site that Windows will have problems
scanning and defragging partitions larger than 137GB. It didn't have any
further explanation. What sort of problems would there be? If I didn't
make smaller partitions, would it be logical to assume that I may end up
with slow performance or even worse, corrupt data?

I have to install a new HD in this Dell 8100 and am uncertain if I should
even try this large of a HD. It was a great deal, but not if it's going to
give me a bunch of problems. Any recommendations? Thanks!

~ Doug

 

[Paul Smith]

I have to install a new HD in this Dell 8100 and am uncertain if I should
even try this large of a HD. It was a great deal, but not if it's going to
give me a bunch of problems. Any recommendations? Thanks!

As long as the BIOS supports it then surely the simplest option would be to
make 2 partitions on the drive.

Or install Service Pack 1 (which really really should be done).

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
http://www.smirnov.demon.co.uk/
http://www.doom3portal.com/ A Doom 3 fansite.
http://www.dasmirnov.net/articles/sp2preview.htm Service Pack 2 is coming!

*Replace nospam with smirnov to reply by e-mail*

 

[S.Heenan]

Hi,

I recently purchased a 160GB hard drive only to find out that Windows
XP (without SP1) will only recognize hard drives as large as 137GB.
I'm not entirely sure at this point if the updated BIOS I put on this
Dell Dimension 8100 will support larger than 137GB hard drives or
not, but lets assume for the moment that it will. (I know, I
shouldn't be assuming anything) Anyway, I read on the Western Digital
site that Windows will have problems scanning and defragging
partitions larger than 137GB. It didn't have any further
explanation. What sort of problems would there be? If I didn't make
smaller partitions, would it be logical to assume that I may end up
with slow performance or even worse, corrupt data?

I have to install a new HD in this Dell 8100 and am uncertain if I
should even try this large of a HD. It was a great deal, but not if
it's going to give me a bunch of problems. Any recommendations?
Thanks!

If the BIOS of the Dell 8100 supports 48-bit LBA, installing Windows XPSP1a
and a reg patch should allow use of the 160GB hard drive. If it doesn't
support 48-bit LBA, you /might/ be able to use a PCI ATA-100/133 controller
card. This will depend on the BIOS allowing booting from and PCI card,
usually called "SCSI" (scuzzy) in the BIOS.

Best bet: unless you can satisfy all the above requirements, purchase a
120GB hard drive, either ATA or SATA, if your board supports the latter.
Partitioning into several partitions is not a work around. File corruption
will be the result.

 

[Ron Sommer]

If the BIOS of the Dell 8100 supports 48-bit LBA, installing Windows XPSP1a
and a reg patch should allow use of the 160GB hard drive. If it doesn't
support 48-bit LBA, you /might/ be able to use a PCI ATA-100/133 controller
card. This will depend on the BIOS allowing booting from and PCI card,
usually called "SCSI" (scuzzy) in the BIOS.

Best bet: unless you can satisfy all the above requirements, purchase a
120GB hard drive, either ATA or SATA, if your board supports the latter.
Partitioning into several partitions is not a work around. File corruption
will be the result.

Partitioning will cause file corruption?

 

[S.Heenan]

in message
Partitioning will cause file corruption?

Not partitioning itself. Partitioning is not a solution for lack of 48-bit
LBA support. If this was the case, even Windows 98 and ME would be able to
use hard drives >128GB. They can't, even with a controller card.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I recently purchased a 160GB hard drive only to find out that Windows XP
(without SP1) will only recognize hard drives as large as 137GB. I'm not
entirely sure at this point if the updated BIOS I put on this Dell Dimension
8100 will support larger than 137GB hard drives or not, but lets assume for
the moment that it will.

To use a drive bigger than 128 GB (in binary measure - 137GB decimal)
needs the use of 48 bits to hold the LBA address number for each sector
- the previous 28 bit LBA overflows at that point. This relates to the
physical drive as a whole, not just to individual partitions on it.

This requires:
A suitable drive, which you have
A machine with a controller and BIOS that support 48 bit LBA; this may
need a BIOS update or may need an auxiliary PCI card to connect the
drive
Windows XP with SP1 so that the drivers and file system can deal with
the larger entries.

So you have *got* to install SP1. And then remove all old 28 bit based
partitions from the drive and recreate them so that the partition table
has the appropriate entries too.

Without doing that you will only be able to use it as a 128/137 GB
physical drive - with the later space inaccessible

 

[Alex Nichol]

As long as the BIOS supports it then surely the simplest option would be to
make 2 partitions on the drive.

No it isn't. This is not a matter of addressing within partitions, but
on the physical drive as a whole - the LBA block numbers of such a
second partition would overflow the old size LBA