only sees 2gig of HD - Did all fixes ? Large disk Enabled

[Malkcontent]

HI there,
I'm hoping someone here can help me. I posted this in the WinMe forum but to no evail and I have new info now too. My computer does not recognise my hard drive as being larger than 2 gig anymore. I recently formatted my machine as I had a new graphics card ( actually an old graphics card which used to be in it, due to upgrades have now built my old machine back up so I know all is compatible and tested working)
I've read about the enabling large disk support from FDisk , which I did as I always do. then tried formatting but still 2.1. Tried destroying and rebuilding partition. Still doesn't work.
When I use the windows ME boot diskette it tells me there are files missing or corrupted (BTCDROM.sys , ASPI8U2.sys) and that line 29 and 30 in my config.sys file isn't correct.
Now the disc has been remade twice and works perfect in my other computer.
The HD reads as 2 gig in the bios as well.
Again, this is not a new setup, it is all things that have been done before.
The HD is set as primary master, with a cd-rw slave and a cd-rom as secondary master. Nothing has really changed since last time I did this. Except for putting a graphics card that used to be in the mother board back in it due to upgrading my best machine.
I tried with another boot disk and didnt get those erorrs, then formatted after making new partition etc. and it said it was FAT32 on FDISK but I still can't get it to recognise that extra 8 gig on there . Please help if you can

Any ideas, or questions of extra detail I can include?

Thanks for looking

[DMR]

The HD reads as 2 gig in the bios as well.

That indicates a problem at a lower level than the operating system, fdisk, etc. Please give us the following specifics:

- Model of motherboard, including version and/or revision number if possible.

- Make and specific version of the BIOS

- Make and model # of the hard drive.

[yni420]

Hi

Older versions of fdisk dont suppport higher amount GB like 40 80 etc.
it usually shows upto 10 gb
Try downloading the latest version of fdisk
try google search you may find it.
or try using some other partitioining tool which works through dos prompt

yni420

[DMR]

Older versions of fdisk dont suppport greater than 80GB.

Greater than 64G actually, but re-read the original post carefully:

" The HD reads as 2 gig in the bios as well... but I still can't get it to recognise that extra 8 gig on there"

I'll grant that the post is a bit hard to follow, but it does sound like the problem is with a 10-ish Gig drive, of which only ~2G is recognised.

Also- keep in mind that if the BIOS itself really is reporting the size as ~2G as Malkcontent said, that would have nothing to with fdisk.

[Malkcontent]

Greater than 64G actually, but re-read the original post carefully:

" The HD reads as 2 gig in the bios as well... but I still can't get it to recognise that extra 8 gig on there"

I'll grant that the post is a bit hard to follow, but it does sound like the problem is with a 10-ish Gig drive, of which only ~2G is recognised.

Also- keep in mind that if the BIOS itself really is reporting the size as ~2G as Malkcontent said, that would have nothing to with fdisk.

It might be because it got formatted when it got read as 2 gig by Fdisk ? . But the Fdisk on that is new enough because I used it to format a 80gig harddrive recently. Thanks for your efforts though -
I'll try to get motherboard etc details. The thing that puzzles me is that I had this setup before I upgraded. with the exact same mobo, a LARGER HD , the same graphics card and same bios. And before I formatted the HD was reading 10 gig on windows.

[DMR]

It might be because it got formatted when it got read as 2 gig by Fdisk ?

PC BIOSes don't depend on fdisk or any other partioning software to get total size/capacity info from a drive; they work on a lower level that that.

Please post all of the details I already asked for, and also:

Go into your BIOS' setup and tell us exactly how the drive is currently being reported there (drive-type, cylinder/head/sector info, etc.)

[frrossk]

A BIOS update should resolve the problem - I figure that MB is an old one, and old version of BIOS don't recognize more of 2 gigs HDD. I delt with such problems sometime, and a BIOS upgrade fixed them.

[suRoot]

If the drive is using FAT instead of FAT32 then you'll find it's the File system limit FAT cannot Support more than 2.1GB

[suRoot]

Also did some one delete my previous post?

[frrossk]

If the drive is using FAT instead of FAT32 then you'll find it's the File system limit FAT cannot Support more than 2.1GB

" The HD reads as 2 gig in the bios as well... but I still can't get it to recognise that extra 8 gig on there" - so the problem is not the FAT, but hte BIOS...

[frrossk]

Also did some one delete my previous post?

No, but Malkcontent posted the same problem twice, in separated threads (one in WinME board)...

[Malkcontent]

No, but Malkcontent posted the same problem twice, in separated threads (one in WinME board)...

Ok I have most of the info requested. I unfortunately do not know the bios info, but if someone could tell me what to look for I can scare it up I'm sure. The same bios has detected up to 20 Gig before though.

Hd- Maxtor 10 gig model - 9120142 has the following written on it
cylinders 16383/ heads 16 /sector 63

Motherboard - FIC Az11E

Bios detects HD as:

capacity 2112MB
Cylinder - 4092
Head - 16
Precomp 0
Landing Zone 4091
Sector 63

I tried unplugging all the drives apart from the HD just to see if that would help I also tried changing the graphics card back - unsurprisingly neither helped. suRoot - It's Fat32 showing in Fdisk. Sorry for posting it in two places, the first post took a while to get a reply because it wasn't the best place for it.

Thanks for all the help folks, It's really appreciated

[suRoot]

Basically it's either a hardware or software or Both limitaton it's not broken the following explains all

[img]http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/techtalk-images/misc/quotes/quot-top-left.gif[/img]Quote:[img]http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/techtalk-images/misc/quotes/quot-top-right.gif[/img][img]http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/techtalk-images/misc/quotes/quot-top-right-10.gif[/img]The 2.1 GB Barrier

The 2.1 GB barrier is actually two barriers in one, a hardware barrier as well as a software barrier. Let's take a look at these two barriers and the associated problems they create.

The Hardware Barrier
BIOS developers and engineers, in order to solve the 528 MB problem we mentioned earlier, employed different methods to accomplish resolution. One such solution was to take the top 2 bits from the Int 13h head register and use them for bits 11 and 12 of the cylinder count. By doing this, the maximum head value that can be stored in the remaining 6 bits of the head register is 63 (64 heads total). This, however, creates yet another problem as you are about to see.

[img]http://www.dewassoc.com/images/important.gif[/img] Keep in mind, none of the predominant operating systems is use today use this method of translation!

The presumption is that all bits of the head register will define the logical head count. Therefore, in order to properly translate a drive with 4,096 physical cylinders you must divide the cylinder count by four (1,024 logical cylinders) and multiply the head count by four (128 logical heads). But, since some of the early BIOS's used the top two bits of the head register as part of the cylinder count, there is no way in which to define 128 heads. A BIOS that handles drives in this fashion may hang during the system POST process, as the BIOS attempts the "Identify Drive" command and tries to set the CHS values.

The Software Barrier
The software barrier is one directly related to DOS or MS-DOS® partitioning issues which are derived from the File Allocation Table (FAT) that DOS uses to keep track of hard disk space. The FAT is only capable of working with 32,768 bytes per cluster and no more than 65,536 clusters. If you multiply the two numbers together you get the maximum partition size that DOS can use of 2,147,483,648 bytes or 2,048 MB (2,147,483,648 / 1,0242). Hence, the 2,048 MB maximum partition size is the 2.1GB software barrier, and DOS, MS-DOS® and FAT are the culprits.

[img]http://www.dewassoc.com/images/noteicon.gif[/img] Possible Solutions:
This barrier or limitation is most often found in older legacy systems (pre-Pentium® II) such as 286, 386, 486 and early Pentium® I systems. Unless there is a very good reason for retaining these old units, our first recommendation would be to replace the problem system. Here are the recommended solutions.

• If the motherboard and BIOS are still supported by the manufacturer, update the BIOS to a more current version to overcome the 528MB barrier and replace the hard drive.
• Try a drive overlay such as those made available by Maxtor and Western Digital.
• Upgrade or replace the motherboard, processor and memory.
• Replace the problem system.

[img]http://www.dewassoc.com/images/important.gif[/img] As you review the remaining groups of barriers that have arisen as drive capacities increase, please keep the original barriers in mind. You will find this original historical information useful when trying to understand the overall scope of these problems.

[img]http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/techtalk-images/misc/quotes/quot-bot-left.gif[/img][img]http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/techtalk-images/misc/quotes/quot-bot-right.gif[/img]

[Malkcontent]

the thing that makes me wonder though is that I have used that mobo with that same bios in another computer , using the same setup disc and had a 20 gig harddrive instead of a 10 and it all worked fine.
Similarly , the 10 Gig hard drive USED to be recognised just fine in both the bios and windows, except for this most recent format after adding a graphics card that, once again, had already been in that same mobo previously before I upgraded my mobo. (Basically built my previous computer up again from the bits left over as I upgraded everything). Again , using the same proven setup disc. I suppose I can try putting the 20 gig on it to see if it recognises that.

Will try to understand what you have there though and see if can come to conclusions. Again , the help is very much aprpeciated

[DMR]

Also did some one delete my previous post?

I don't see anything in the mod notes for this thread that indicate that; are you sure it was a post in this thread?

[Malkcontent]

I don't see anything in the mod notes for this thread that indicate that; are you sure it was a post in this thread?

he replied on the other one I had posted in WinME forum

[suRoot]

nope no one did he osted the same thread in the DOS windows section

Malkcontent did you have windows XP on it before or maybe using the FAT32 file system... this would explain it?

[Malkcontent]

nope no one did he osted the same thread in the DOS windows section

Malkcontent did you have windows XP on it before or maybe using the FAT32 file system... this would explain it?

It had WinME on it

[frrossk]

I still think you have a BIOS problem... If you're interested, there are some useful links:
http://www.fic.com.tw/support/motherboard/doc/procedure.aspx
ftp://ftp.fic.com.tw/motherboard/bios/socketa/az11e/vdc49_az11e_pcb11.zip

[Malkcontent]

Ok guys, i have managed to fix it , but I'm not sure why it worked..

I first tried putting another hard drive on the faulty machine to see if it read it higher than 2.1 Gig , and it read the full 20 Gig. So no problems with bios or mobo reading higher than 2.1 there it seems.

I then put the 10 gig problem in my other machine, and it read it as 10 gig no problems. So I partitioned and installed windows on that machine and then transferred it back to the original problem board.

When I checked the bios, it still read as 2.1 gig. BUT when it booted up to WinME , it reads the full 10gig and works perfectly.

Any thoughts as to why it worked ?, thanks for all your help folks. It's appreciated more than you know

[odonn]

Ok I have most of the info requested. I unfortunately do not know the bios info, but if someone could tell me what to look for I can scare it up I'm sure. The same bios has detected up to 20 Gig before though.

Hd- Maxtor 10 gig model - 9120142 has the following written on it
cylinders 16383/ heads 16 /sector 63

Motherboard - FIC Az11E

Bios detects HD as:

capacity 2112MB
Cylinder - 4092
Head - 16
Precomp 0
Landing Zone 4091
Sector 63

I tried unplugging all the drives apart from the HD just to see if that would help I also tried changing the graphics card back - unsurprisingly neither helped. suRoot - It's Fat32 showing in Fdisk. Sorry for posting it in two places, the first post took a while to get a reply because it wasn't the best place for it.

Thanks for all the help folks, It's really appreciated[/QUOTE} hello i was just looking around the web for basically the same question,in being that i am putting a starter computer together for my brother inlaw from extra old parts laying around (pcchips m570, only except one if it is free or somebody´s about to chuck it,in my case i needed the 75 mhz bus for a k6-2 366.and a maxtor 10,1 gb drive) first not being aware that sombody had flashed the bios and it supported drives up to 38,gb i enabled the jumper on the hard drive for a bios
that does not support a drive that large and every time with that configuration i get the exact same parimiters in bios that you have. in being in
that configuration you need to use a overlay driver.use maxtor´s max blast 3 in that configuration or better just flash your bios and use the standard jumper settings if your bios does not support a drive that large .my problem being i zero´ed out the drive let max blast 3 update the mbr for a ddo now i cant get get rid of it, zero´ed the drive again used fdisk for for mbr i am throwing windows me on it. the bios see´s the hard drive properly no problem
but when it boots the driver still loads and format only see´s 1,6 gb i probally made a mistake just have to start again.but check out maxtor´s site it might be able to help you with your problem.