Maxtor Onetouch external harddrive and the 37.5GB barrier

[Guest]

Hi
Forgive me if this is the wrong group to post my question to.

My girlfriend and I have recently paid for a 300GB Maxtor Onetouch external
hard drive. I have paid half as this is an expensive Christmas present for me"

Anyway, I am looking forward to getting this thing installed after
Christmas, but I now have a concern, and I hope one of you can put my mind at
ease.

One year ago I tried installing a 160GB internal hard drive. After I started
filling the hard drive I started to get "filedump" errors then the hard drive
become corrupted.
I returned the 160GB drive to the shop and exchanged it for the 120GB drive
which was and still is running fine.

I decided the reason I had a problem was because my computer has this issue
me with supporting hard drives over 137.5GB's.

So now I have this brand-new Maxtor external hard drive and I’m really
worried that I will have the same problem again.
I am hoping that as this is an external hard drive I wont have the same
problem as it is going to be running on USB2.

I’m getting mixed opinions about whether or not this hard drive will be ok,
but I really would like someone that is 100% positive that the drive should
or shouldn’t work to help me.

I have recently downloaded a “hotfix†that is supposed to make it work but I
can no longer find the site to show you a link to the "hotfix", but I think
it was a Microsoft site like this.

Even with this “hotfix†installed I don’t feel totally confident it will
work, and with only a few days left to Christmas I really don’t know what to
do - exchange the 300GB drive for a 120GB :-( or risk trying the hard drive
and wind up corrupting it and voiding the guarantee (an expensive mistake)

My OS is XP Home SP1, and I know this is supposed to support larger than
137.5GB drives except it didn’t with my old 160GB one.

A chap at PC World assured me it would be ok but I still want more opinions
as I know he made a few hundred quid at the time he told me.

Thanks to anyone that can put my mind at ease.

 

[Guest]

The hard drive size restriction you mention is governed by the Motherboard
and BIOS; NOT Windows XP.

Sorry to say that, if an internal drive of >137Gb isn't able to be formatted
greater than 137Gb you will have the same issues with an external driveof
160Gb or more.

 

[Guest]

Hi Bar

Oh no, this is bad news.
I am able to get a refund for this HDD, but my only other option is a 160GB
which is in stock.
Do you think I might be ok with that??

Sorry I guess you have already answered that but I must ask you again to be
sure TY

 

[Kenny S]

Hello Shane...

I also got a Maxtor 200 gb internal, and I can tell you what I found out
while I was trying to see if
I could use it properly. I connected this drive as a SLAVE for extra
storage.

I am not sure if these requirements are the same for the external...
For the internal HD to work you had to have:

Windows 2000 with SP3 or windows XP with SP1 or SP2 installed
A bios that is 48 bit LBA compatible (this is sometimes hard to find out...
I had to send
many emails to the manufacturer of the motherboard to get an answer, but
perhaps you
can find that information on the manual)

You have to:
Run the Maxtor large drive enabler on XP
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...tware Downloads/ATA Hard Drives&downloadID=11

and format the disk with the MaxBlast software provided with the drive (this
is important because
I could not do it through windows HD management, or even Partition Magic 8).

So I,

1) had XP with SP2 on it
2) installed the drive
3) ran the large drive enabler
4) formatted with Maxblast

I chose to make 2 partitions with maxblast. One at 120 GB ensuring that this
partition will be readable on another
computer if for some reason I have to transfer it, and a second partition
with the other 80 GB (you would make the partitions
as 120 and 180 GB)

Hope this information helps you do what you need

Kenny

 

[Kenny S]

I am not sure that these limitations are the same for a USB external
drive...
I would think not since there is no IDE controller invovled, rather
it is connected via USB.

Along with the Drive you will get a booklet that explains what to do
when you have a large drive.

How old is your computer?

Dont get discouraged.. I think that it will work for you.

 

[Kenny S]

I downloaded the manual for the external drive from here:
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...II Family/Maxtor OneTouch II Firewire and USB

I selected Installation>installation manual

and I saw that there are not the same limitations as with the internal
drives...

so I think it will work for you

 

[Kenny S]

there is no need to refund, the external will work for you

 

[Guest]

Thanks Kenny, you have been extremely helpfull!

Unfortunatly I didnt wait long enough to get your first message!

I have just returned back to work having just got a refund on the harddrive
and replaced it with the 120!!

I will try not to be to upset as at least I will soon be running an extral
120GB's and at a faster rate of 7200 rather than 5400.

The idea is to store DivX movie files that are approx 700meg each, so that
new drive plus my 80 and 120 internal drives will still give me plenty of
room for now!

Thanks so much for your help, and I hope what you wrote will still be
helpfull to other users.

 

[Kenny S]

you should learn more about computers before you give crappy advice to
people!

 

[Bill Bradshaw]

Well I have an older Pentium III 800 Mhz computer running WinXP SP2 and I
have a 200 gig Maxtor OneTouch external drive hooked up to it via a USB port
and I can see the entire drive. So I do not think externals are limited to
137.5 GBs. Note I am working off of a 6 year old motherboard with a 6 year
old BIOS and can see the entire capacity of the external drive.

 

[Guest]

Hello again!

Well a week into owning the 120GB drive its developed a fault.

The supplier has agread to let me exchange it for the 200GB version that you
both "think" will work on my PC (AMD1500+ XP SP1).

So after your findings Kenny, do you think I can format my drive using the
usual windows format technique? If so ill be picking it up tommorrow

Same question to Bill if you have some new knowledge.

Thanks.