Largest IDE HD capacity for a single system? Please help.

  • Thread starter Thread starter ND
  • Start date Start date
N

ND

Hi all,

I want to build a single HD system, where no partition on that HD is
allow. What is the largest IDE HD capacity I can have? I have bought
a 300GB Seagate over the weekend to build this system, but when
installing the os I see the capacity only is 137GB or so. Therefore
the question posted. I'm new at this thus can anyone help me.
Thanks,
ND
 
ND said:
Hi all,

I want to build a single HD system, where no partition on that HD is
allow. What is the largest IDE HD capacity I can have? I have bought
a 300GB Seagate over the weekend to build this system, but when
installing the os I see the capacity only is 137GB or so. Therefore
the question posted. I'm new at this thus can anyone help me.
Thanks,
ND
Click to expand...

What OS are you using?, i'd advise Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2.
 
I'm trying to install WinXP into a brand new 300GB hd without
partitioning. Thus the problem with hd capacity. The WinXP setup
recognized the drive but only listed at 137GB not 300GB when asking if
I want to partition the drive. I want to have all 300GB on Drive C:
thus lie the problem.

Thanks in advance for your help.
 
Do you have XP SP2?, do you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard?

You may just have to select Drive C as 137GB with the remainder on Drive D +
E.
 
The issue is in the partition option before formatting a brand new hd.
I want to have all 300GB in C: Drive because that is what my client
wants due to an application that doesn't have the capability of saving
large (huge) amount of data into a different drive beside drive C: . I
know... that is a dump application but before they have a solution to
fix it... this is a temp fix for the storage issue.
Thanks for your help
 
www.48bitlba.com
Click to expand...

The issue is how large the boot partition is. Other than that, XP
supports partitions in the terrabyte range. (1000's of Gigabytes)

I _think_ you can make a token partition, (a gigabyte ?) for
boot.ini, ntldr, etc, and then install XP in the second partiton,
which will appear as C: when you log in. All the essential files to
boot XP will put in the little partiton by XP setup. I keep intending
to try this. SOmeone please correct me if I'm wrong.

Use NTFS. Depending on the way your application writes it's files NTFS
file system compression may help you, big time. I once was running an
allication that was receiving a GB/day of raw data and we needed to
keep a month's data online. This was when a 4GB server disk was a big
deal. As it happened , the data was all numeric ascii and compressed
20:1, so we used 50MB/day of real space. The applications that wrote
and read that data actually ran significantly faster since since we
were IO bound, not CPU bound, and a few computation cycles was cheaper
than the physical disk transfer.

You can put a second disk in the machine and put the swap file and the
tmp folders on it. to make the best of your C partition. A second
copy of XP could live there, too.

I believe Western Digital has a 400GB disk. It's a bit slow (5400rpm)
so putting swap on a second, fast, disk would be indicated it you do
any swapping, and maybe offload some application IO.

If you do RAID0 you can make a C drive that's the sum of the two disks
you're using. So I can see a C drive of almost 800GB, even if the
machine could only boot a 137GB partition.

Putting the system and a huge amount of data in the C drive is sort is
a PITA for backup and recovery from OS screwups (like applying SP2).
Consider installing a second, minimum, copy of XP for recovery if the
real XP gets screwed. Plan in 6GB for that. This could be installed
on a second spindle. The boot.ini file in the first partition on the
first disk has an entry for all the instances of XP you've installed
and points to the right device and folder when you pick one at boot
time.

When you boot an instance of XP, the partition that it lives in
becomes the C drive.
 
ND said:
I'm trying to install WinXP into a brand new 300GB hd without
partitioning. Thus the problem with hd capacity. The WinXP setup
recognized the drive but only listed at 137GB not 300GB when asking if
I want to partition the drive. I want to have all 300GB on Drive C:
thus lie the problem.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Click to expand...

And then he added...
"The issue is in the partition option before formatting a brand new hd.
I want to have all 300GB in C: Drive because that is what my client
wants due to an application that doesn't have the capability of saving
large (huge) amount of data into a different drive beside drive C: . I
know... that is a dump application but before they have a solution to
fix it... this is a temp fix for the storage issue.
Thanks for your help"

ND...
There are two basic requirements for Windows XP to recognize the full
capacity of large-capacity drives, i.e., drives having a capacity greater
than 137 GB.
1. Your mainboard's BIOS must support large-capacity disks, and,
2. SP1 or SP2 has been installed at the time the drive has been installed.

If the large-capacity drive has been installed at the time Windows XP does
not include SP1 or SP2, the system will recognize a maximum capacity of 137
GB on that drive, so that the maximum partition one can create will be that
size. Should the drive have a greater capacity, the remaining disk space
will not be recognized by the operating system. In and when SP1 or SP2 is
subsequently installed, the full capacity of that drive greater than 137 GB
will be recognized -- the 137 GB that was partitioned/formatted when XP was
installed, and the remaining GB capacity will be reflected as "unallocated
space" -- disk space that you can subsequently partition/format using XP's
Disk Management utility. But note in this case it will be a second partition
on the disk.

So the moral of this story is to ensure that at the time your 300 GB disk is
installed, Windows XP has been updated to SP1, or preferably, SP2 and to
determine that your motherboard's BIOS supports large-capacity disks. Every
motherboard I know of that has been manufactured over the past three years
or so does support large-capacity disks. In some cases a BIOS upgrade will
provide that support for older boards.
Art
 
Art said:
And then he added...
"The issue is in the partition option before formatting a brand new hd.
I want to have all 300GB in C: Drive because that is what my client
wants due to an application that doesn't have the capability of saving
large (huge) amount of data into a different drive beside drive C: . I
know... that is a dump application but before they have a solution to
fix it... this is a temp fix for the storage issue.
Thanks for your help"

ND...
There are two basic requirements for Windows XP to recognize the full
Click to expand...
capacity of large-capacity drives, i.e., drives having a capacity greater
than 137 GB.
1. Your mainboard's BIOS must support large-capacity disks, and,
2. SP1 or SP2 has been installed at the time the drive has been installed.

If the large-capacity drive has been installed at the time Windows XP does
not include SP1 or SP2, the system will recognize a maximum capacity of 137
GB on that drive, so that the maximum partition one can create will be that
size. Should the drive have a greater capacity, the remaining disk space
will not be recognized by the operating system. In and when SP1 or SP2 is
subsequently installed, the full capacity of that drive greater than 137 GB
will be recognized -- the 137 GB that was partitioned/formatted when XP was
installed, and the remaining GB capacity will be reflected as "unallocated
space" -- disk space that you can subsequently partition/format using XP's
Disk Management utility. But note in this case it will be a second partition
on the disk.

So the moral of this story is to ensure that at the time your 300 GB disk is
installed, Windows XP has been updated to SP1, or preferably, SP2 and to
determine that your motherboard's BIOS supports large-capacity disks. Every
motherboard I know of that has been manufactured over the past three years
or so does support large-capacity disks. In some cases a BIOS upgrade will
provide that support for older boards.
Art
Click to expand...

Thank you all for your invaluable information. Especially Art.

Your suggestion does make sense since this motherboard is about a year
old. I will try to update the MB bios and retry the WinXP installation
as you have suggested.

Thank you all again,
ND
 
Either your motherboard's BIOS is too old to recognize HD sizes larger than
137 GB, OR you are uing XP as your OS and you have not loaded SP1 yet. XP
cannot recognize HD sizes larger than 137 GB without SP1 installed.
 
ND said:
I'm trying to install WinXP into a brand new 300GB hd without
partitioning. Thus the problem with hd capacity. The WinXP setup
recognized the drive but only listed at 137GB not 300GB when asking if
I want to partition the drive. I want to have all 300GB on Drive C:
thus lie the problem.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Click to expand...

You need to have LBA enabled in your BIOS and use at least XP SP1 to allow
addressing of larger drives. Manufacturers usually have a downloadable
utility available which will handle the process for you. Oh yeah, you could
have had a 400gB drive if size really does matter to you.
 
ND said:
of 137


be that


SP2 is


137 GB


XP was


disk is



Thank you all for your invaluable information. Especially Art.

Your suggestion does make sense since this motherboard is about a year
old. I will try to update the MB bios and retry the WinXP installation
as you have suggested.

Thank you all again,
ND
Click to expand...

Note what he said. If your XP install CD is the original then it is not SP1
nor SP2 and the drive will still be seen as 137 gig.

To do a fresh install straight onto the large drive without having to make
two partitions you'd need to first create a slipstreamed SP1 or SP2 XP CD
so that the service pack is there to see the whole drive during the install.
 
Your suggestion does make sense since this motherboard is about a year
To do a fresh install straight onto the large drive without having to make
two partitions you'd need to first create a slipstreamed SP1 or SP2 XP CD
so that the service pack is there to see the whole drive during the install.
Click to expand...

Hey, I wonder if this would work:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331958
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...5f-4483-4edc-a17e-6f659a033b0d&displaylang=en

Download the hotfix... It's a self extracting cab file.
Extract the files from the exe using WinRAR or your own favorite
decompression utility. Grab the atapi.sys from the sp1 folder and put
it on a floppy disk. Insert the Windows XP installion cd for booting.

As soon as you see the detecting hardware screen, begin pressing F6
repeatly to insure windows detects your intent to use third party disk
drivers.

When prompted, insert the diskette with the ATAPI.SYS on it. That
should, in theory, allow to install on more than 137GB. I wish I had
an available 160+ GB drive to test this with. The idea here is not to
use the default ATAPI.SYS that is on the CD, but instead, you the
replacement driver provided in the hotfix.

Anybody follow what I'm proposing here?
--
If it's spam, it's a scam! Don't do business with net-abusers.
http://mbdynip.dyndns.org/html/mboard/

alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt mini-FAQ available at:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt/
 
Hey, I wonder if this would work:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331958
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...5f-4483-4edc-a17e-6f659a033b0d&displaylang=en

Download the hotfix... It's a self extracting cab file.
Extract the files from the exe using WinRAR or your own favorite
decompression utility. Grab the atapi.sys from the sp1 folder and put
it on a floppy disk. Insert the Windows XP installion cd for booting.

As soon as you see the detecting hardware screen, begin pressing F6
repeatly to insure windows detects your intent to use third party disk
drivers.

When prompted, insert the diskette with the ATAPI.SYS on it. That
should, in theory, allow to install on more than 137GB. I wish I had
an available 160+ GB drive to test this with. The idea here is not to
use the default ATAPI.SYS that is on the CD, but instead, you the
replacement driver provided in the hotfix.

Anybody follow what I'm proposing here?
Click to expand...

Yes but you can't install just a '.sys' file. There's no INF for it. Not to
mention the IDE ports won't be a 'new', unused, device. They'll already be
attached to the standard ATAPI.SYS.
 
When prompted, insert the diskette with the ATAPI.SYS on it. That
Yes but you can't install just a '.sys' file. There's no INF for it. Not to
mention the IDE ports won't be a 'new', unused, device. They'll already be
attached to the standard ATAPI.SYS.
Click to expand...

This is the beauty of the proposal. The ATAPI.SYS is loaded into
memory even before the IDE chain is detected during the Windows XP
install. Also note, the SYS file is installed prior to the formatting
of the drive. And you can indeed install a .SYS file at this point.
I've good screenshots of this very procedure somewhere. I wonder if I
can dig them up. I'll try to find and post 'em on the web for you
guys to see. Surely someone knows where I'm going here and won't
dismiss it so quickly.
--
If it's spam, it's a scam! Don't do business with net-abusers.
http://mbdynip.dyndns.org/html/mboard/

alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt mini-FAQ available at:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt/
 
This is the beauty of the proposal. The ATAPI.SYS is loaded into
memory even before the IDE chain is detected during the Windows XP
install. Also note, the SYS file is installed prior to the formatting
of the drive. And you can indeed install a .SYS file at this point.
I've good screenshots of this very procedure somewhere. I wonder if I
can dig them up. I'll try to find and post 'em on the web for you
guys to see. Surely someone knows where I'm going here and won't
dismiss it so quickly.
Click to expand...

Maybe I misunderstood what your proposed procedure is and I'd love to see it.

Let me explain what I thought.

During the normal setup you press F6 to load a third party driver.
Windows proceeds with the detection of storage devices.
After it finishes with what it knows about it stops and asks if you have
any 'additional' storage devices, since you pressed F6.

At this point I don't understand how you tell it to 'change' the IDE device
it should have already detected.

I also don't understand how you tell the install routine, which is looking
for a .inf on the floppy, to 'install' the ATAPIS.SYS with nothing but the
one file, ATAPI.SYS, on the floppy with no .inf. (that's what I meant about
"just a '.sys' file." That there is no .inf; not that one can't install a
driver that includes a .SYS file)

But I'm willing to be educated.
 
I'm trying to install WinXP into a brand new 300GB hd without
partitioning. Thus the problem with hd capacity. The WinXP setup
recognized the drive but only listed at 137GB not 300GB when asking if
I want to partition the drive. I want to have all 300GB on Drive C:
thus lie the problem.
Click to expand...

What does your BIOS recognize the drive size at? The BIOS on my old
computer would only recognize my 200 GB drive at 137GB. When I built a
new computer with a newer BIOS it saw the drive at 200 GB and so did
Windows.

--Dave
 
This is the beauty of the proposal. The ATAPI.SYS is loaded into
During the normal setup you press F6 to load a third party driver.
Windows proceeds with the detection of storage devices.
After it finishes with what it knows about it stops and asks if you have
any 'additional' storage devices, since you pressed F6.
Click to expand...

Yes. This is exactly what I'm talking about. But here's the thing.
With Windows NT 4, you were given a chance to press F6 in the early
goings of the install. However, if you needed drivers for the boot
device, you had to press F6 long before the prompt ever came. Might
the same be true of Windows XP? Anyway, this is why I was under the
impression you may be able to replace even the ATAPI drivers.
At this point I don't understand how you tell it to 'change' the IDE device
it should have already detected.
Click to expand...

This is where it gets a little gray. I never tried to specify an
ATAPI driver here. I've only used RAID drivers, but I was guessing
maybe you could put in a driver diskette in for IDE just as well as
you could SCSI or RAID. Maybe not, but I'd like to give it a go.

I'm still working on posting the screenshots.
I also don't understand how you tell the install routine, which is looking
for a .inf on the floppy, to 'install' the ATAPIS.SYS with nothing but the
one file, ATAPI.SYS, on the floppy with no .inf. (that's what I meant about
"just a '.sys' file." That there is no .inf; not that one can't install a
driver that includes a .SYS file)
Click to expand...

Perhaps you're right, an inf is required, even in the early stages of
the install. I just don't remember seein' the .inf. I'm checking on
that.
--
If it's spam, it's a scam! Don't do business with net-abusers.
http://mbdynip.dyndns.org/html/mboard/

alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt mini-FAQ available at:
ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt/
 
Back
Top