Why Maxtor 160GB is only 131069MB?

C

cpliu

From Partition Magic, I can see

Western Digial 120GB = 114470MB
Iomega 120GB = 117796MB
Maxtor 160GB = 131069MB

I don't understand how they calculate the size but it should be only
called like 145GB than 160GB.

No matter you divide it by 1024 or 1000, Maxtor exaggerates their size
too much.

A B
==============================
WD 120GB 95.39% 93.16%
Iomega 120GB 98.16% 95.86%
Maxtor 160GB 81.92% 80.00%

A - percentage of the actual size from claimed size based 1GB = 1000MB
B - percentage of the actual size from claimed size based 1GB = 1024MB

Isn't 80% too much? almost like fraud to me!


Any explanations??? Is it the same with WD or other brands?

BTW, I'm using NTFS on all of them.

Someone suggested that my BIOS may not be able to address the proper
number of cylinders and heads for that drive. My motherboard is a 2-year
old ASUS P4B266. Will my motherboard be able to see the full size at all?


Thanks for the help,


cpliu
 
D

Dave Hau

If what you showed us was from running PM from DOS, then try running PM from
the Windows UI and see if the disk size reported is different.

Cheers,
Dave
 
A

Andy

Partition Magic determines the drive size via the motherboard BIOS
int13 functions, so apparently your BIOS is subject to the 137GB
limit. However this does not restrict the operating system (e.g.,
WinXP with SP1 or Win2000 with SP3) from recognizing the full size of
the drive.
 
C

cpliu

If what you showed us was from running PM from DOS, then try running
PM from the Windows UI and see if the disk size reported is different.
Click to expand...
No, I viewed it from Windows. It showed up as 130 some GB under Windows UI
too, but I formatted it with PM8. So whatever I formatted with would be the
size reported by Windows. I e-mailed Asus but have not heard anything back
yet.

Thanks for the help,


cpliu
 
D

Dave Hau

Have you enabled 48-bit LBA support in Windows yet?

For Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];303013

For Windows 2000:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];305098

You need to do this before the Windows IDE driver will be able to see
hard drives > 137GB.

Since your motherboard uses the Intel 845 chipset, another option for
you is to use the IDE driver from Intel, which also supports hard drives
137GB. Intel calls it the Intel Application Accelerator, available here:
Click to expand...

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/Product_Filter.asp?ProductID=663

Cheers,
Dave
 
C

cpliu

Have you enabled 48-bit LBA support in Windows yet?

For Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];303013

For Windows 2000:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];305098

You need to do this before the Windows IDE driver will be able to see
hard drives > 137GB.

Since your motherboard uses the Intel 845 chipset, another option for
you is to use the IDE driver from Intel, which also supports hard
drives
137GB. Intel calls it the Intel Application Accelerator, available
here:
Click to expand...

http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts-df/Product_Filter.asp?ProductID
=663
Click to expand...
Thank you all for the help. I tried David's suggestion by using registry
trick. It didn't work. So I applied service pack 4. It still didn't work.
Lastly, I tried the Intel Application Accelerator and rebooted. Partition
Magic recognized the extra space there afterwards. I'm not sure if it's
just Intel thing or combination of others to make it work. I read the
manual came with drive, it also mentioned that I can connect the drive to
their ATA 133 card to recognize over 137GB space. I didn't try since the
previous method worked.

Thanks again for the help,

best regards,


cpliu
 
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