200 GB HDD and BIOS

[rnoori]

Hello all; I have just purchased a 200 GB Western Digital hard drive.
When I first put it in as the master drive, the BIOS detected it as
an 8 GB drive! My motherboard is old, from around 2000/2001. Does
this mean my BIOS just doesn't support harddrives of this magnitue
entirely? Is there no 48-bit LBA addressing? How would I know? Why is
it only seeing 8 GB hard drive? I would expect to either 1) not
detect it at all 2) detect it in full, or 3) detect 137 GB of it.

Also, if I can establish that my motherboard is indeed to old, is
there anyway to get around this? Anything I can do, any patch I can
download to upgrade my BIOS? Or would I need a new motherboard?

Thank you
Raymond

 

[Peder]

(e-mail address removed)-spam.invalid (rnoori) wrote in

Hello all; I have just purchased a 200 GB Western Digital hard drive.
When I first put it in as the master drive, the BIOS detected it as
an 8 GB drive! My motherboard is old, from around 2000/2001. Does
this mean my BIOS just doesn't support harddrives of this magnitue
entirely? Is there no 48-bit LBA addressing? How would I know? Why is
it only seeing 8 GB hard drive? I would expect to either 1) not
detect it at all 2) detect it in full, or 3) detect 137 GB of it.

Also, if I can establish that my motherboard is indeed to old, is
there anyway to get around this? Anything I can do, any patch I can
download to upgrade my BIOS? Or would I need a new motherboard?

Thank you
Raymond

Too old, I'd guess. You could look for a BIOS update for your MB to
support large drives. I'd suggest an add on controller that supports large
drives, something like a Promise Ultra 100 TX2 (~$25) since your board
probably runs at ATA33 anyway.

 

[Rod Speed]

Hello all; I have just purchased a 200 GB Western Digital hard drive.
When I first put it in as the master drive, the BIOS detected it as
an 8 GB drive! My motherboard is old, from around 2000/2001.

Thats not all that old.

Does this mean my BIOS just doesn't support
harddrives of this magnitue entirely?

Unlikely with a motherboard of that vintage.

Is there no 48-bit LBA addressing? How would I know?

The simplest test is whether the bios sees it as 200GB.

Why is it only seeing 8 GB hard drive?

What did you do about the drive type entry ?
You should be using AUTO. Likely you entered
the heads cylinders sectors numbers off the
label or used the autodetect entry in the bios.
Thats not the same as an AUTO drive type.

I would expect to either 1) not detect it at all

That doesnt happen when the bios cant handle a drive of
that size. It always sees the drive and get the size wrong.
It can lock up with a bios with the award 32GB bug.

2) detect it in full, or 3) detect 137 GB of it.

There are other limits than the one at 137GB.

Also, if I can establish that my motherboard is
indeed to old, is there anyway to get around this?

Yes, there are a variety of ways around the problem if
the drive still shows up as 8GB with an AUTO drive type.

Anything I can do, any patch I can
download to upgrade my BIOS?

Yes, there may well be a later version of the bios available.

Or would I need a new motherboard?

That is never necessary, tho it can be a good
approach if its a real dinosaur, for other reasons.

You can always use a bios overlay. That is available
on the WD web site. This is one of the least desirable
approaches tho, particulary if you are running one of
the NT/2K/XP family of OSs and its got some
downsides even with the Win9x family of OSs.

You can add a bios PCI controller card which can
handle drives that big. This is the second most
expensive approach after a new motherboard.

Most likely the problem is that you arent
using the AUTO drive type in the bios. It
may only see 137GB tho when you fix that.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Too old, I'd guess. You could look for a BIOS update for your MB to
support large drives. I'd suggest an add on controller that supports
large drives,

something like a Promise Ultra 100 TX2 (~$25) since your board
probably runs at ATA33 anyway.

More likely ATA66 or even ATA100 (2000).
Even 48-bit LBA was introduced in 2000.