BIOS Limitation for large hard drives > 137 gig.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Terry
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Terry

Does this limit exist in XP?
I have a KT7 Raid.
How do I check if the KT7 will allow larger drives?

I have looked through the manual, but I didn't see it.
 
In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt Terry said:
Does this limit exist in XP?
Click to expand...

You need Service-Pack 2.
I think the limit was fixed in SP-1; but get SP-2.

Your BIOS must also support the larger size.
If the BIOS doesn't, then you need a BIOS fix program like that which WD
includes with their drives.

Finally, if you reformat it in NTFS mode (the standard for large drives)
you won't then be able to clone the drive like you can a FAT-32 drive;
because Win-XP will make several partitions appear to be one ... to
itself anyway ... and the cloning program won't know what to do with
that.
 
Terry said:
Does this limit exist in XP?
I have a KT7 Raid.
How do I check if the KT7 will allow larger drives?

I have looked through the manual, but I didn't see it.
Click to expand...
Its been a long day so..... the story goes XP w/SP2 no problems with drives 137 gigs blah
blah.
Dells with GENERIC bios (which I discovered today)or early/poorly written BIOS (not XP
per say) have limits also
Check with the 'brand' of computer or Mainboard manufacturer for a bios revision. You will
also find an explanation of what the bios revision fixed.
 
Finally, if you reformat it in NTFS mode (the standard for large drives)
you won't then be able to clone the drive like you can a FAT-32 drive;
because Win-XP will make several partitions appear to be one ... to
itself anyway ... and the cloning program won't know what to do with
that.
Click to expand...

Are you speaking only of drives that have the overlay in use? I had a
dying 160GB hard drive that was formatted in NTFS (not using an overlay)
with three partitions and Acronis had no problem cloning the drive to the
new hard drive.

Patty
 
In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt Patty said:
Are you speaking only of drives that have the overlay in use? I had a
dying 160GB hard drive that was formatted in NTFS (not using an overlay)
with three partitions and Acronis had no problem cloning the drive to the
new hard drive.
Click to expand...
Don't know about Acronis; but ever since I went to NTFS, Western
Digital's "Data Lifeguard" suite says it can't clone my 250 gig drives.

It says something like:
"Warning: your current boot drive is a dynamic disk. Therefore Data
Lifeguard Tools cannot set up the selected drive as a new boot drive.
However, it can be set up as additional storage."

Other tools I've tried have similar problems.

Funny that: You'd *expect* that you could just do a disk-image copy,
sector-for-sector, just like the old DISKCOPY program used-to-do.
 
Frank McCoy said:
Don't know about Acronis; but ever since I went to NTFS, Western
Digital's "Data Lifeguard" suite says it can't clone my 250 gig drives.

It says something like:
"Warning: your current boot drive is a dynamic disk. Therefore Data
Lifeguard Tools cannot set up the selected drive as a new boot drive.
However, it can be set up as additional storage."
Click to expand...

Why would your disks be dynamic? they should be 'basic' for most instances. This is what
disk management says also?
 
XP versions prior to SP2 will NOT recognize harddrives larger than 137 GB in
any motherboard. In addition, your older motherboard's BIOS will not
recognize larger than 137 GB.
 
In alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt "JAD" <john
Why would your disks be dynamic? they should be 'basic' for most instances.
This is what disk management says also?
Click to expand...
Disk Management says "Basic".
As to why LT says "dynamic", I have not the foggiest idea.
I went to WD's website and downloaded the latest ... Same Result.

Didn't do that with a FAT-32 format on the same drive.

Haven't found (yet) any other tools that handle it; though I've been
told Acronis is supposed to do much better ... But my budget for
computer-software right now is nonexistent; and they ain't free.
 
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