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6GB HDD only 2GB

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by travkinlaw 1 view

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I have a Dell Lat Lm laptop(133MHz/40MbRam) runnning Win98.I just installed a new 6GB HDD as FAT32 (after FDISK and Formatting)and upgraded the BIOS. Windows only sees the HDD as 2GB??DO I need to upgrade the HDD Controller, or is there something that I did not do? I have spent hours on Dell's web-site and can not get a straight answer. Thanks in advane for the help.

17 replies

by gravesm28

I had a similiar problem with a older desktop. You are probably only seeing one partition (2GB) of the Hard Drive. If you continue loading the Operating System you should be able to untilize the entire Hard Drive but will be shown as drives C, D andE.

by dmiles

One you may want to check to see if the BIOS is enabled to recognize the 6gb drive,using the CMOS control panel,also your Bios may need updating.
When you fdisk,did you use the enable large disk support?

by corewarrior

If the Bios is set to auto-detect the HDD Type and You answered yes to the Use large disk support y/n at the start of fdisk.then run Fdisk again and select option 4.to view the partition information.it should show that 100% of the drive is being used as 1 6gb partition.Otherwise,delete and redo the
creatinfg a partion procedure.Assuming,that the hdd was partitioned as a large hdd and we know win98 supports large hdd as long as fat 32 is used.then I would conclude that the bios does not support LBA translation.Your other options are to use a dynamic drive overlay utility like Disk manager or purchase a Controller card that supports LBA.

From who did you purchase the hard drive?At the link below there is a side note that states;
NOTE: The computer's BIOS does not support hard-disk drives received from vendors other than Dell.

http://support.dell.com/docs/systems/pespmmx/storage.htm

http://support.dell.com/docs/systems/pespmmx/storage.htm

by numanabbas

Ok,lets try this:
perhaps when you used Fdisk you did not choose to enable more than 2 GB (the second screen after you have enabled the maximum size you pressed 'N') and formatted only the C drive after making it active without enabling the other partion to active. Boot the PC from the startup disk and check the options again. If you can back up your data, repartion, reformat the HD and it will work.
Good luck

by johnnyw

The simple solution would be to download a disk utility and let it format and configure your drive for large disk support. The manufacturer of your drive probably has one on their web site. This is especially good if you intend to put large drives on older os and hard drive controllers.

by mphoffar

I'm not trying to unsult you or anything, but are you sure you formatted it using fat32?? Because 2 gigs is the amount that fat15 will only allow you to format too. run fdisk again and see if you can find any unused space on there by creating a seacond partition. It may just be something as simple as the other 4 gigs not being partitioned at all. Answer 1 has a good idea too in making sure that the full 6 is being recognized by the system bios. You may have to use a disk prep utility, likemaxblast (for maxtor) or ezdrive (for seagate) to fully utilize the drive.

Mark

by ronny.baeb

install partition magic and you will have no problems any more, alternative at the installation you probabley updated the bios after installing the new HD so it did simply a 2 GB formatting, so run fdisk and create a second partition off 4GB or multiple partitions

by ronny.baeb

install partition magic and you will have no problems any more, alternative at the installation you probabley updated the bios after installing the new HD so it did simply a 2 GB formatting, so run fdisk and create a second partition off 4GB or multiple partitions

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