Personal computing discussed

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videobruce
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8GB limit on Pavilion 8240

Wed Mar 26, 2003 9:10 am

I'm up against the classic 8GB limit on a 15GB HDD.
There is no bios update, it is a 430TX chipset with a PII 233 processor in a Pavilion 8240 system.

Is a bios issue, chipset issue or is it a processor issue?

Is there anything that can be done or am I screwed?

This is running FAT32 and eventually loading 2k. Win95 is there now. BTW, there is 256MB of PC66 installed.
 
Steel
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Wed Mar 26, 2003 9:52 am

It's a BIOS issue. Win2K may see the whole drive, but I wouldn't count on it. Your only option may be to use drive translation software like EZ-Drive to see the whole drive.
 
crazybus
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Wed Mar 26, 2003 9:55 am

I believe there is software you can use to get around this problem. Ontrack Disk Manager I think. Look on the website for the drive manufacturer. They may have something useful.
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videobruce
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Wed Mar 26, 2003 10:00 am

It's a Maxtor 15GB 531DX drive.
I am familar with their utility MaxBlast, but aren't there issues with it using it on other MB's?

How about a bios update from somewhere other than HP?
 
Steel
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Wed Mar 26, 2003 10:24 am

videobruce wrote:
It's a Maxtor 15GB 531DX drive.
I am familar with their utility MaxBlast, but aren't there issues with it using it on other MB's?
It couldn't hurt to try... the worst that could happen is you'd be right back where you started. Another option is to get a PCI IDE card, like the Promise UltraATA/133. Or even an older one if you can get it for cheap.
 
Blahpony
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Wed Mar 26, 2003 10:28 am

HP motherboards are pretty proprietary but you may be able to track down the original manufacturer online. No promises that HP hasn't tweaked the board and the BIOS will work though. MaxBlast should work with any motherboard. But again, you never know what weird things HP did to that board first.

You seem real familiar. Haven't we met somewhere else before? :wink:
 
videobruce
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Wed Mar 26, 2003 10:40 am

You seem real familiar. Haven't we met somewhere else before?
I hang out im a whole bunch of forums.

I just remember hearing horror stories about drive overlay software. I'm worried about down the road that weird problems will surface that can't be corrected because of using this.

Example. How about using Partition Magic to repartition the drive later, or using Drive Image or any defrag utility?
 
Steel
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Wed Mar 26, 2003 10:54 am

videobruce wrote:
Example. How about using Partition Magic to repartition the drive later, or using Drive Image or any defrag utility?
Defrag should work just fine, since you'll already be booted up in the OS you're running. As far as Partition Magic and Drive Image go, you just have to be very, very careful. The procedure usually is to start the computer, wait for the "Press a key to boot from floppy" message (not sure what Maxblast says, if it even does this), and boot from a floppy with one of the programs on it.

Have you tried updating with HP's latest BIOS? This is all it says about it, but it may also fix the hard drive problem:
Changes for this release:
-------------------------
1. Fixed problem where system time/date does not rollover
correctly when system is in Suspend.
 
videobruce
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Wed Mar 26, 2003 11:08 am

It is the latest bios!
 
Starfalcon
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Wed Mar 26, 2003 11:52 pm

Go with the promise PCI IDE card, I am currently running a 40 Gig drive on an old TX board with no problems. It is the best way to do it as it will be faster than the onboard IDE anyway.
 
videobruce
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Thu Mar 27, 2003 6:45 am

For $40 for a IDE card, I would rather replace the MB for another $20 and get a Duron Processor for another $30!

I did use MaxBlast, but I'm worried about problems down the road. I tried to use Partition Magic, but it gives me a error about incorrect drive geometry on the new drive and marks it as bad.
 
morphine
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Thu Mar 27, 2003 10:41 am

This may not be of any help in your case but anyway here it goes:
I managed to get an 80GB drive on my 440BX motherboard, which has a 32GB upper BIOS limit. This is how I did it:

a) First, no *not* let the BIOS detect the drive. Set the interface/connector where you plugged in the drive to "None" so that it doesn't get detected on boot up.
b) Write down your Cylinders/heads/sectors data (present in the drive's top sticker).
c) Go to your BIOS, to the proper interface/connector where the drive is, and select "User" as the drive size, and "Normal" on the LBA mode.
d) Insert the cylinders/heads/sector data in the respective places and after that (ONLY AFTER THIS), set LBA to on. Never mind if the data doesn't match up after you enable LBA.
e) The BIOS will report some weird size for the drive on detection, never mind that.
f) Use an OS which bypasses the BIOS and accesses the PCI bus directly. Any later-than-WinMe OS should do it. Win2K, WinXP, Linux, anything will do that, and if this works, you'll have the drive's full capacity available.

NOTE: do not try to format the drive in DOS/Win95/98/Me/whatever, it will only "see" as much disk space as the BIOS does, and not the full capacity.[/code]
 
videobruce
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Thu Mar 27, 2003 12:17 pm

I went ahead and installed MaxBlast.

So far the only imcompabilities are Partition Magic and Drive Image. Neither wiil work.

This isn't my box and it will be a 2nd box for them so this should be good enough I hope.

The only remaining item is some weird drive incombatibility between the Quantim bigfoot and the Maxtor where I get a SMART error with the Maxtor when the bigfoot is connected. If the Maxtor is by itself it is fine. I ran PowerMax on both and both pass certification.

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