Hi all, I just got a new 20 gig hard drive!
I did the fdisk, and format before install -
problem is that my computer only recognizes
it as a 8 gig Hard drive, even when I manually
input the HD information (cylinders, sectors, heads etc.)
It tells me my HD is only 8 gigs. So my GQ is “what the heck is going
on”. Do I need to up date the BIOS, go back to the store
or live with 8 gigs.
BTW: Computer info, Pentiun II, 266mhz, mmx, pipeline burst,
196 megs mem (bios was written in 1998)
Any Ideas would be helpful, 20 gigs to me is an unbelievable
amount of space, I’d hate to waste it.
Your disk should have come with a utility on a floppy to check out your system and help setup your drive. Run that and it will tell you if your BIOS can handle the drive size (and offer to use bypass software to work around it, which is a real kludge). If you don’t have the disk, go to the makers web site and download the software.
If your BIOS can’t handle it, then maybe you can flash your BIOS to to newer version. Check with your computer maker’s website or Wim’s BIOS page.
BTW, it is not really a good idea to to FDISK and FORMAT on system different from what you intend to use it on. (BIOSes might differ in subtle ways). Also, due to drive translation and such it’s best to let the BIOS autodetect the drive parameters rather than manually entering them. (The physical props. of the drive have no relation to the reported parameters nowadays.)
[QUOTE]
(The physical props. of the drive
have no relation to the reported parameters nowadays.)[\QUOTE]
So it might read 20 gigs anyway?
Thanks for the info, I found the site you
mentioned before I posted, seemed a bit confusing.
I had forgotten about the work around, I had this happen with a 486 a few years ago, seagate made
something avail. called a dynamic link overlay.
Ill go see if they have some thing like it now a days and report back.
You might need to get a new IDE controller for your board. I bet its IDE channel doesn’t like anything over 8 GB. Several of my computers have been in that situation.
Look at the store where you bought your HD for an IDE controller. They’re about $50.
I’m writing to you from my nifty new 20 gig
HD (YOW), I didn’t need to spend the extra $50
as Sea Gate had the software to work around
the problem, as FTG said its a “KLUDGE”
(what the hell is a kludge?) if that means
its not the pure way to go about it, ok by me.
It works, when you boot up there is one more step in the process and you need to see Seagate’s
logo for a second or two. But hay! 20 gigs is better than 8, and I saved 50 bucks!
A kludge (it is supposed to be pronounced klooge, but I prefer to think of it as having something to do with sludge and klutz and pronounce it accordingly) is an inelegant, maybe sloppy, ad hoc, often flaky and perhaps not entirely reliable solution. You use it if you have to, but you prefer not to. It is much better to replace or upgrade the BIOS. In 1998, standard hard drives were 2-5 GB and I guess the BIOS makers hadn’t noticed that disk capacity was doubling every 19 or 20 months. (I saw the first PC hard drives at Comdex, 1982 and they were 5 MB. IBM came out with the XT later that year or early '83 with 10MB drives and the AT in '84 with 20MB. Twenty years later 20 GB is standard, if isn’t 40. So there were 12 or 13 doublings in 20 years.) It is funny how BIOS makers always have some built-in limitation that is not much higher than current standards. They wouldn’t be doing that so that you have to get a new BIOS whenever you upgrade your computer. Nah!
I have a p233 & when I put it a 20 gig HD, I used the install disk, which worked just perfect. I
did have to fdisk it first to undo that 8 gig size I set it for doing the bios thing you did.
I ran fdisk to delete the partition data. BTW, staples.com & instore has a 80gig HD after rebate for
$79 today, won’t last long.