200gb hard drive
 

Hi,
I have just purchased a 200 gb hard drive, but when I come to formatt it, it only shows up as a 131gb, any ideas :)

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Name/make/etc?

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

You havent really given us enough information to say.

What OS are you using?
What File System is on the Drive?
What mother board do you use?

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Er, the drive is a Maxtor 200gb with 8mb of cache, it will be used as a slave drive on a Win XP Pro system, and I have tried to formatt this drive on 2 machines one of which is only a few months old, I only want format ie no operating system,

Thanks,

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

What file system did you format the drive with? if I remember right FAT32 has a limit of 130GB so that could be your problem.

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Reformat it using NTFS if thats the case.
AFAIKR that has a limit of 4 tb ish.

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Or split the drive in half - 100Gb either side.

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Couldn't this be a 48-bit LBA issue?

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Sounds like you have an older motherboard that is only capable of addressing 136 GB of HDD. Is your original HDD 4 or 5 GB?

You can fix this with a new PC, or buying a PCI IDE controller card and putting that in a free slot.

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

would the older machine succesfully run xp pro though :erm:

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Yeah Yeah, should have read the whole thread first. Thought I would chip in first as this is why I bought the 120 GB Maxtor, not bigger for my W98SE server type PC.

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

i might be wrong , it was just a thought :D :D :D

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Sorry, I have been struggling with a non working a/drive, will have to swap it with my son's machine ! I have not been able to format the drive but I have found a utility on the Maxtor web site that might, but I need my a:\ drive working so that I can make a boot disc, it never rain's but it poors

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Why would you need a boot disk to format from Windows XP Pro?

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Read the thread :( the Maxtor utility comes on a floppy...

Although I happen to think this is BIOS related, try updating the BIOS (WITH CARE!) or checking the settings, put the IDE detection on Auto if you haven't already.

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

be nice ;)

but i agree i reckon it is a bios problem :(

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Maybe I'm just assuming everyone knows that Maxtor utilities are floppy affairs and I was trying to be as nice as possible. :( Perhaps I only know cos one of my drives is a Maxtor ...

It's something about some BIOSes not being able to address more than 137GB- if you look in the mobo manual or on the support forums of the mobo manufacturer's site (MSI have a good one for example) you might be able to confirm that as the case and a BIOS flash might solve it. If not buy a new mobo :( or put up with 137 which is still a lot but not ideal :(

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Thank you for that,but,would I not need an a:\ drive to update the bios as previously to do this I have had to boot from a floppy ? :)

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

yes probably but mine will update from CD or HD as well :)

you could always buy a new floppy drive, only cost about a fiver/ few pints...

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

you can download a bootable cd iso image from the website, have a look at

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Ma...&downloadID=19

:)

<edit> I've uploaded the installation manual to

http://gazfan.com/files/EN_FR_DE.PDF

if you want to have look :)

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Found a utility on the mother board driver disc, and I think this has updated my bios without leaving Windows, I have tried the the floppy drive on my son's machine and it is not working, but, when I re-connected his f/drive that had the same faults as mine has so i am left wondering if the f/drive has damaged the floppy controller on my mother board ? sounds unlikely but it could happen !!!

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

sorry banjo, I'm confused ;) - are you saying both floppies have packed up now? - sorry if this sounds silly, but have you checked that your ribbon cable is ok & that the red stripe side is connected to 'pin 1' at both the drive & motherboard end? It should also connect 'end to end' with the end with the twisted wires connected to the drive, not the motherboard.

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

You can tell if the floppy is connected wrong, the light is always on then.

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Yeh, that happened with my old PC :erm:

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Thank you very much this has helped no end :) I will try that later as I am pulling my hair out at the moment, pints all round I think, Cheers !!!

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Sorry, but yes both a\drives are not working on their respective machines, same fault on both no lights no head chatter and even with a disc in I get the error message that their is no disc in the drive, I have checked the data/power connectors and all seems OK.

The strange thing is the a:\ drive still shows up in my computer even when it is not connected in any way ?

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Obviously a BIOS or a motherboard controller issue then, have you checked whether the BIOS can see it?

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

weird - the floppy from the laptop was ok till you tried it with your desktop machine, then you put it back in the laptop & it didn't work? - am I reading that right?

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

Does the bios report the drive as the correct size ?

If it does then it could be the way that you are formating the drive. Maxblast installs proprietory software into the boot sector and can create problems.

Personaly I would install the drive as a slave on xp and format the drive from disk management.

HTH

Re: 200gb hard drive
 

I've done that with my last three drives including a Maxtor and had no probs.

So unless it's a BIOS issue try that and see.