Web Development

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Harddisk compatibility

0 helpful
6 replies

by kirtan

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

I am facing a problem of harddisk compatibility with my Personal computer at home.

My personal computer is CYrix - 233 MHz CPU based machine bought around Aug-98. My IDE harddisk of 4.3 GB attached to this machine has crashed.

The documentation of my mother board specifies that BIOS could recognize harddisk only upto size of 8.4 GB.

I have tried installing 40 GB harddisk of Samsung on my PC but my BIOS does not auto detect the same. The screen waits there indefinitely without going further.

As presently 8.4 GB harddisk are not available, I need to install either 20 GB or 40 GB harddisk. What is the solution available to me? Specific queries ...

1. If my BIOS is not auto detecting harddisk, could I enter parameters for this harddisk manually in the USER mode? Since, it has to operate in LBA mode, what would be the parameters for Seagate and Samsung harddisks of 20 GB and 40 GB size?

2. Is it possible to install 20 GB and 40 GB harddisk without upgrading BIOS of my computer? I believe India does not have facility of upgrading BIOS.

3. Is there any third party software available which can be used as a interface between BIOS and higher level to enable it recognize 20 GB harddisk? Is it available in Shareware?4. Is it possible to use either 20 GB/ 40 GB harddisk as just 8.4 GB harddisk on my machine? What should be the parameters to be entered in BIOS as machine will not detect harddisk.

5. Are there any other solutions?

Thanks & best regards,

6 replies

by ebob

Do you mean your BIOS does not even "see" the HDD? If so, then:
1 - play with the jumpers

and/or

2 - manually describe the HDD to the BIOS

And yes, once that's done, you should be able to at least "see" the 8.4GB limit on the HDD.

It seems to me that you could boot the PC, and run FDISK from the boot disk to setup 3 partitions on the 20GB HDD: 2 each of around 8GB and one of 4GB, for example. Then your BIOS should be able to provide all of these to your O/S.

by ebob

If you're planning on using a relatively modern O/S, like Win2000, maybe even 98SE, you do not need to bother with partitioning the HDD into smaller elements.

Once you get the system to "see" the drive, you can just tell your O/S to use the whole drive. Format the one big partition, and waay you go.

by gojotwo

The easiest way is to update your BIOS. The motherboard mfg. website is the best place to go.

The second way is to go to the hard drive mfg. website and check to see if they have software to download to make the drive visible with full capacity,(less overhead on the drive itself).

If all else fails, WD has software that ships with their hard drives. Follow the instructions in the owners manual.

Good Luck!

by llaw

I don't have an answer to this problem, BUT, I have a concept for some of you to clear.

The BIOS in the PC is just a low level info for the bootstrap loader where to find the Master Boot Record and the subsequence few track to load the Boot records. Depending on the OS, after the boot record is loaded, the geometry is no longer needed and the OS(eg. W2K will handle and manage without the BIOS).

First of all, play with jumpers first making sure the drive is Master (OR, whatever the situation, esp if you daisy chain with a CD-R or ZIP). Autodetect seldem fails, it only mistaken.

So, after that, what I suggest is specify the correct Heads and /S and give max for cylinders. This will probably good for the NTOS to stand up and handle the rest. It is not necessary to partition the 20G to three smaller since those partitions(also can be primary or secondary in W2K) are not handled by BIOS. BIOS does not know partitions!

Flashing the MB is very dangerous, it may make the board unusable if not properly done.

Good luck.

by rdschaefer

Only one of the previous posts came close. The easiest solution is to replace the motherboard. You can still use everything else in the case (CPU, Memory, Cards, Drives, Etc.) plus you'll get up-to-date device support.

Ralph

by support

Go to the website of the HDD manufacturer and download the appropriate "disk manager software".

canaan

This discussion is closed to new replies.