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Cornish Jack
26th Mar 2007, 23:10
Trying to install a replacement HD on a spare 'bitsa' machine. It's a middle of the road spec 500Mb RAM and a low to middle range processor. Have tried to install a 90Gb, an 80Gb and a 40Gb HD and they all fail to be recognised on boot up. I have checked them on a separate machine with PM8 and they are visible and have been formatted FAT32 and partitioned. The previous fit was a 4Gb Maxtor and that worked fine. Does anyone have the details on Bios limits for HD size, and is that likely to be the culprit?
Any suggestions gratefully received.
TIA

vapilot2004
27th Mar 2007, 00:17
There are limitations on HD size with some motherboards. Your new drive may have a jumper setting to assist with older MBs, but you may not get the full use of the drive.

Easiest way to check on size limits is to go to your MB manufacturer website for your BIOS version, or the computer maker if it is a common brand. (Dell, IBM etc) Many offer free flash updates for the BIOS**.

If you have a generic machine, look for the BIOS ID numbers on first boot. You can sometimes use a well timed press of the Scroll Lock key to hold the display.

AMI Website: here. (http://www.ami.com/amibios/)

AWARD & Phoenix Website: here. (http://www.esupport.com/region.cfm?) < Pay $ite.


**A BIOS flash process can kill a working motherboard if the original BIOS is corrupt or there is a floppy error.

Good Luck!

Coconutty
27th Mar 2007, 16:44
Just a few thoughts / things to try ........

Is this a replacement Master Drive, or are you replacing a separate Slave Drive ?

If replacing the Master, there are a few things you could try :

Make sure - Triple check - the new Master drive jumper is in the correct place - basics I know but still easy to get it wrong !

Before removing the old Master, access the BIOS settings to see if it is set up for Auto detection, then shut down, swap drives and try again.

Or ...

If the PC boots off the original Master drive, leave it in place and try adding the new drive as a Slave, ( with the jumpers correctly set on BOTH drives ) - assuming you still have an OS on the original Master you should then at least be able to check what is going on.....

If you can install it as a Slave you should then be able to check the BIOS and make a note of the settings, and could use a Program such as Acronis True Image or another Disc cloning program to set it up as the Master transferring all thefiles across from the original.

I also came across a very similar problem not long back where a new slave drive WAS detected by the BIOS, but was NOT displayed within Windows Explorer ( XP Pro ).

Check Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management / Disk Management - it may be that the new drive has not been assigned a drive letter - If I remember correctly you can do this from the "Actions" menu.


Hope these help - Good Luck :ok:

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d129/coconut11/Coconutty.jpg

Cornish Jack
27th Mar 2007, 22:39
Thank you VAP2004 and Coconutty
Just to enlarge a little - the machine is my 'fiddling' spare:8
Until a week or so ago, it was booting up OK on a well used Maxtor 4Gb drive. A friend's machine went down and I used the Maxtor to get him back in business. I then tried to fit three different HDs (not all at once!!) to replace the Maxtor. The boot process is the same for all three - everything OK until HD check and then it hangs. These three HDs have each been run on my main machine as slaves on a USB detachable drive connection and are recognised, show correct properties and format OK as FAT 32 using Partition Magic 8. These three are 40, 80 and 90 Gbs. I don't have any other small capacity drives to use for comparative checks.
What I have just done is to split one of the drives to give a 2Gb primary partition and the remainder as extended logical. Haven't been able to check it yet but will try tomorrow - fingers crossed. :ugh:

Coconutty
28th Mar 2007, 08:15
What are your Motherboard details - Make & Model ?

If you don't know what MB it is then take a physical look at it - there should be some ( sometimes obvious but sometimes not ) lettering / numbering stamped, or screen printed, or even on a label somewhere on the board which should identify it - then it can be researched from the manufacturers web site.

Post any likely looking numbers here and / or do a Google search with them to see if you can identify the MB, then check the Manufacturers web site for specifications -

Not much point trying to second guess the problem without knowing what you're up against !

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d129/coconut11/Coconutty.jpg

Cornish Jack
4th Apr 2007, 16:05
Thank you Coconutty
Apologies for the delay in replying but it's been a 'bad week at the pooter':mad: This particular problem has resolved itself into size limitation, as suspected. Put a 4Gb HD in and it was recognised and allowed fdisk'ing etc. Unfortunately, it then threw up so many bad sectors that it had to be dumped.:ugh: Will have to look for another smallish HD to install.
I now have a new problem with a different machine.:{
I (foolishly) recommended a Vista machine for a friend on the ludicrous assumption that MS would have, at last, got their act together. Very pretty to look at but I omitted to check that the build included a modem. No problem, thinks I, just get an external usb dial-up - sorted!! WRONG!! The glorious Vista has incompatibility issues with everything I've tried and I can't find anything which it will work with. In desperation, I decided to install XP as dual-boot with Vista. No way. Vista won't allow an OLDER OS version to be installed on its nice shiny parish.:mad: Solution - remove Vista and THEN install XP....... it won't allow that either. Even using a Linux boot CD only gives the opening menu for function - any selections are ignored and it reboots.:confused:
Sooooo ... does anyone know how to remove Vista from a SATA drive such that I can re-Fdisk and reformat to allow a clean XP install OR how to bypass Vista to allow a dual-boot set-up?
TIA, again

Cypherus
4th Apr 2007, 21:00
A full walkthough of 'How too install XP alongside Vista' can be found here,:http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

Tried it myself today on a scrap machine and it works without a problem.

Cornish Jack
5th Apr 2007, 11:55
Thanks Cypherus, had that link recommended from another source also but there have been a number of posts on the Dell site indicating bad problems and lock-ups with NOTHING booting at all. I think that I will approach that option with mega caution - at least the machine is working OK at the moment - just can't get on line with it. Since we have the original Dell software CDs, it should be fairly straightforward to re-install Vista if it ever becomes a fully useful system. Certainly, at the moment, I would much prefer to delete the whole thing and install XP in place - so much simpler, BUT how to delete the present set-up??? :confused: :( :suspect: :ugh: :hmm:

Skystar320
5th Apr 2007, 14:09
you could always put a match under it :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

Mac the Knife
5th Apr 2007, 17:37
You may be able to get a BIOS update, but if you can't you can get around the HDD BIOS limitation by using a Dynamic Drive Overlay like Ontrack's Disk Manager.

See http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/bios/overDDO.html

There are others too, but its a long time since I used any.