WD 160GB drive/Promise controller - some apps still see "137GB"?

[Greg Samson]

Hi. I just replaced a 120GB drive with a 160GB Western Digital drive in an
older machine (Dell XPS R series). Knowing that the BIOS wasn't going to
be handling a drive > 137GB, I used the Promise controller card that came
with it, and appeared to be getting good results - the drive was recognized
as having 149 GiB (149 binary gigabytes, aka 160 decimal gigabytes). The
Promise controller card's BIOS is up-to-date; I've also got Windows XP
Service Pack 1a installed.

Unfortunately, I got some scary results from both the Belarc advisor
(latest version, 6.0g) and a SMART disk monitoring program I use - they
both report the WD 160GB drive as a "137.44GB" drive, though other portions
of the utilities seem to recognize the full space. I've heard horror
stories of what happens when you write beyond the 137GB limit without
proper hardware and OS support - things like rewriting starting over at the
beginning of the disk, corrupting whatever's stored there, etc.

Is there a way I can be sure that my setup will work properly when I try to
write to the space above 137GB on the 160GB drive?

Thanks in advance for any answers!

 

[Bishoop]

| Hi. I just replaced a 120GB drive with a 160GB Western Digital drive in
an
| older machine (Dell XPS R series). Knowing that the BIOS wasn't going to
| be handling a drive > 137GB, I used the Promise controller card that came
| with it, and appeared to be getting good results - the drive was
recognized
| as having 149 GiB (149 binary gigabytes, aka 160 decimal gigabytes). The
| Promise controller card's BIOS is up-to-date; I've also got Windows XP
| Service Pack 1a installed.
|
| Unfortunately, I got some scary results from both the Belarc advisor
| (latest version, 6.0g) and a SMART disk monitoring program I use - they
| both report the WD 160GB drive as a "137.44GB" drive, though other
portions
| of the utilities seem to recognize the full space. I've heard horror
| stories of what happens when you write beyond the 137GB limit without
| proper hardware and OS support - things like rewriting starting over at
the
| beginning of the disk, corrupting whatever's stored there, etc.
|
| Is there a way I can be sure that my setup will work properly when I try
to
| write to the space above 137GB on the 160GB drive?
|
| Thanks in advance for any answers!
|
| --
| u w i z a t c l u e s t i c k d o t o r g

I had the same problem with two 180GB drives when I formatted NTFS with
WinXP. I formatted them with PartitionMagic and viola, 167GB.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Svend Olaf Mikkelsen has a utility that checks for wrap around.
http://inet.uni2.dk/~svolaf/utilities.htm

It's for 32GB though.
Maybe Svend can make a version where you can set the limit.

 

[Eric Gisin]

|
| | | Hi. I just replaced a 120GB drive with a 160GB Western Digital drive in
| an
| | older machine (Dell XPS R series). Knowing that the BIOS wasn't going to
| | be handling a drive > 137GB, I used the Promise controller card that came
| | with it, and appeared to be getting good results - the drive was
| recognized
| | as having 149 GiB (149 binary gigabytes, aka 160 decimal gigabytes). The
| | Promise controller card's BIOS is up-to-date; I've also got Windows XP
| | Service Pack 1a installed.
| |
| I had the same problem with two 180GB drives when I formatted NTFS with
| WinXP. I formatted them with PartitionMagic and viola, 167GB.
|
No, you don't have the same problem.

The smart utility is bypassing XP and issuing ATA commands using IDE
passthrough. The utility is only LBA-28 aware.

 

[Greg Samson]

|
| | | Hi. I just replaced a 120GB drive with a 160GB Western Digital
| | drive in
| an
| | older machine (Dell XPS R series). Knowing that the BIOS wasn't
| | going to be handling a drive > 137GB, I used the Promise controller
| | card that came with it, and appeared to be getting good results -
| | the drive was
| recognized
| | as having 149 GiB (149 binary gigabytes, aka 160 decimal
| | gigabytes). The Promise controller card's BIOS is up-to-date; I've
| | also got Windows XP Service Pack 1a installed.
| |
| I had the same problem with two 180GB drives when I formatted NTFS
| with WinXP. I formatted them with PartitionMagic and viola, 167GB.
|
No, you don't have the same problem.

Exactly right - in fact, what Bishoop is describing isn't a "problem" at
all, it's the corrupting effect of marketers. 180 decimal GB
("gigabytes"), which is 180 * 1,000,000,000 bytes, is 167.6 binary
gigabytes ("gibibytes", or GiB, which family of terms everyone seems to
hate), or 167.6 * 1,073,741,824 bytes.

The smart utility is bypassing XP and issuing ATA commands using IDE
passthrough. The utility is only LBA-28 aware.

I was expecting and hoping something like that was the case. Thanks for
the answer! (Now I just have to figure out if I want to get the 200GB
drive for cheap at Fry's ...)