USB 2.0 External 250GB Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter MrManuals
  • Start date Start date
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MrManuals

Hi All;
I 'm thinking of buying a 250GB external USB 2.0 drive for backup.
I'm running XP Home, if I buy this drive, how do I get Windoze to
recognize it above the 137mb limit? Or does the 137mb limit only apply
to internal drives?

TIA.

Paul
 
MrManuals said:
Hi All;
I 'm thinking of buying a 250GB external USB 2.0 drive for backup.
I'm running XP Home, if I buy this drive, how do I get Windoze to
recognize it above the 137mb limit? Or does the 137mb limit only apply
to internal drives?
Click to expand...

That's a limit imposed by the controller, so there's no need to worry
about it for a pre-assembled external drive. If you're plopping an
internal drive into an USB enclosure, you might need to be wary of that.
Unfortunately, I don't see any mentions of those limits here:

http://www.newegg.com/app/listProduct.asp?submit=list&catalog=92&DEPA=0&sortby=11&order=0

Also a small aside -- I've seen a 127Gb limit discussed, but not a 137Mb
one. (137Mb still beats my first hard drive though!)
 
Grinder said:
That's a limit imposed by the controller, so there's no need to worry
about it for a pre-assembled external drive. If you're plopping an
internal drive into an USB enclosure, you might need to be wary of that.
Unfortunately, I don't see any mentions of those limits here:

http://www.newegg.com/app/listProduct.asp?submit=list&catalog=92&DEPA=0&sortby=11&order=0


Also a small aside -- I've seen a 127Gb limit discussed, but not a 137Mb
one. (137Mb still beats my first hard drive though!)
Click to expand...

They are both the same thing. The capacity limit results from a 28 bit
BIOS, (or controller), being able to access only 2^28 sectors of the
disk. 2^28 = 268435456 times 512 bytes/sector = ~137 Gb using 1 Mb =
1000. Using 1 Mb =2040 this is exactly 128 Gb. The disk makers use the
larger figure.

Virg Wall
 
VWWall said:
They are both the same thing. The capacity limit results from a 28 bit
BIOS, (or controller), being able to access only 2^28 sectors of the
disk. 2^28 = 268435456 times 512 bytes/sector = ~137 Gb using 1 Mb =
1000. Using 1 Mb =2040 this is exactly 128 Gb. The disk makers use the
larger figure.
Click to expand...


I think the guy was making a joke in reference to the original poster's typo
(137 MB is what he typed but I'm sure he meant 137 GB).
 
They are both the same thing. The capacity limit results from a 28 bit
BIOS, (or controller), being able to access only 2^28 sectors of the
disk. 2^28 = 268435456 times 512 bytes/sector = ~137 Gb using 1 Mb =
1000. Using 1 Mb =2040 this is exactly 128 Gb. The disk makers use the
larger figure.

Virg Wall
Click to expand...

Ok, so what if I were to install an internal drive over 137gb into
this enclosure. Would I be able to get this to work with XP home?
You see, I already have an enclosure that I'd like to use. It has
connections for an IDE drive on the inside, but it connects to a USB
2.0 cable on the outside of the case.

TIA.

(e-mail address removed)
 
I think the guy was making a joke in reference to the original poster's typo
(137 MB is what he typed but I'm sure he meant 137 GB).
Click to expand...
Yes, I did mean 137GB

I have an existing USB enclosure, it has an IDE connection on the
inside. What I need to know is can I use say a 160GB drive here
without problems, or am I going to be limited to the 137Gb limit if I
use it this way?

TIA

(e-mail address removed)
 
MrManuals wrote:

[snip]
I have an existing USB enclosure, it has an IDE connection on the
inside. What I need to know is can I use say a 160GB drive here
without problems, or am I going to be limited to the 137Gb limit if I
use it this way?
Click to expand...

What is the manufacturer and model number of the enclosure? I would
guess that they've been farsighted enough to provide plenty of
addressing, but I would rather find some explicit specs.
 
MrManuals wrote:

[snip]
I have an existing USB enclosure, it has an IDE connection on the
inside. What I need to know is can I use say a 160GB drive here
without problems, or am I going to be limited to the 137Gb limit if I
use it this way?
Click to expand...

What is the manufacturer and model number of the enclosure? I would
guess that they've been farsighted enough to provide plenty of
addressing, but I would rather find some explicit specs.
Click to expand...


My enclosure really doesn't have any markings on it except for ' High
Speed Alloy Enclosure' Bought it on eBay. I used it before with an
80gb drive, but I had an internal drive failure and I had to use the
back up drive as a replacement for it.

TIA.

Paul
 
MrManuals said:
MrManuals wrote:

[snip]

I have an existing USB enclosure, it has an IDE connection on the
inside. What I need to know is can I use say a 160GB drive here
without problems, or am I going to be limited to the 137Gb limit if I
use it this way?
Click to expand...

What is the manufacturer and model number of the enclosure? I would
guess that they've been farsighted enough to provide plenty of
addressing, but I would rather find some explicit specs.
Click to expand...



My enclosure really doesn't have any markings on it except for ' High
Speed Alloy Enclosure' Bought it on eBay. I used it before with an
80gb drive, but I had an internal drive failure and I had to use the
back up drive as a replacement for it.
Click to expand...

At this point I will have to defer to someone with more experience with
these enclosures. Hopefully they will happen by...
 
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Hash: SHA1

I have 2 x 250 Gb USB2 ones connected to my main system. When
formatted they only come out as 230'ish (down to the FAT table) but
windows XP home works perfectly.

Rich

It works fine I have a 160 and it is recognized.
Ron
Click to expand...

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Comment: Send any queries to (e-mail address removed)

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Rich said:
I have 2 x 250 Gb USB2 [external drives] connected to my main system. When
formatted they only come out as 230'ish (down to the FAT table) but
windows XP home works perfectly.
Click to expand...

That's because of HD manufacturer's fondness for Gb = 1,000,000,000
bytes, and the operating system's use of Gb = 1,073,741,824 (1024^3)
bytes. 250,000,000,000 bytes / 1,073,741,824 = 232.8 Gb.
 
Ok, so what if I were to install an internal drive over 137gb into
this enclosure. Would I be able to get this to work with XP home?
You see, I already have an enclosure that I'd like to use. It has
connections for an IDE drive on the inside, but it connects to a USB
2.0 cable on the outside of the case.
Click to expand...

Go ahead and buy a 250GB IDE drive and try putting it in
the enclosure. In the worst case, you'll find out that
the unit doesn't support drive sizes over 128GiB
(137438953472 bytes). In which case you'll need to buy
a newer USB or firewire case for $40 or so. The
enclosure that I like is the Mace Group CA-405U2. I
have half a dozen of these holding larger drives.

http://www.thenerds.net/productpage.asp?d=1&pn=554903&s=
0

I do suggest you use 5400rpm drives in any external
enclosure as they generally run cooler then 7200rpm
drives. A lot of USB/firewire enclosures have poor
cooling and will cook a drive unless you keep the office
below 72F.
 
Hi All;
I 'm thinking of buying a 250GB external USB 2.0 drive for backup.
I'm running XP Home, if I buy this drive, how do I get Windoze to
recognize it above the 137mb limit? Or does the 137mb limit only apply
to internal drives?

TIA.

Paul
Click to expand...

Hi Paul

I have 2x250GB Maxtor One Touch USB2/fw external Ultra ATA-133 7200RPM
HDDs.

One runs off an OrangeLink FireWire 800/1394b (1394a + b) PCI card as
a 1394a device.
The other runs off the USB2 port of my Asus P4T533-C s478/i850e
motherboard as a USB2 device.

WinXP HE SP1
P4 2.8b\533MHz FSB retail
1GB OCZ PC1066 RIMMs
etc

I installed them following the manual without a hitch.

Use this as a guide:
Go to MS http://www.microsoft.com/ >Resources >Support >Knowledge Base
search 309000 >HOW TO: Use Disk Management to Configure ...
Click to expand...


Then r-click MyComputer >Disk Management (hit F1 for relevant Help)

Here is a link to the manual I used. The software may be different but
the install drill should be similar.


http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/M...Touch Family/Maxtor OneTouch FireWire and USB

The size issue wasn't an issue. You should see the drive in Disk
Management. You just have to fdisk (partition) and format.

Mine work very well.
Copied all my CDs to one as wavs with EAC (Exact Audio Copy), use WMP
9 to sort/edit playlists.

I'm pleased.
They are faster than I expected.

Happy trails,
 
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