Installing 200+ GB disk (BIOS Limits)

  • Thread starter Thread starter - Eli -
  • Start date Start date
E

- Eli -

I'm attempting to install a Maxtor hard drive and I was wondering if anyone
can give me some help. I'm pretty sure my motherboard is a bit too old to
handle a large drive (Soyo 6VBA133).

From what I have seen, my options are: install SP1 and install Maxtor's big
drive enabler, purchase a controller card, use MaxBlast to install a hard
drive overlay thing.

I'm not sure about the last option - can you clarify to see if it would work
in my case? It's running in WinXP minus SP1, which I can install if
absolutely necessary. If I partition the hard drive into many smaller
chunks, would that solve the problem?

Thank you.
 
Use the MaxBlast software to setup the drive into partitions smaller than
the limit of 137Gb.
 
Hmm I installed SP1 anyway and then loaded MaxBlast software. So it appears
everything works fine now. :)
 
Someone mentioned using the BIOS 'overlay' will render the drive data
unrecoverable in the event that the boot sector is corrupted, and that the
MaxBlast usually screws up in a year. Erm...

So I have split it up into 33 GB, 103 GB, 103 GB anyway. Is there anything
to worry about? The MaxBlast software is installed and this 48-bit LBA
registry modification was made, also.

- Eli
 
Did you check the website for your motherboard manufacturer to see if there
is a BIOS upgrade that will allow your BIOS to recognize disks larger than
137Gb?

Bobby
 
I updated my BIOS one time ago, and I should check if they have a newer one,
because I'm not sure exactly if I'm using the newest one. But right now, it
shows up as 136 MB upon bootup.

- Eli
 
Back
Top