Author Topic: Large Hard Drive and W7 (Read 6797 times)

sloan448 · « **on:** February 20, 2010, 08:40:26 PM »

I'm sure this has been asked a few times. My XP won't recognize larger than 137 gb, does Windows 7 have this problem. I just got a 1.5 tb drive and XP isn't seeing all of it even after I installed SP2. I am thinking of getting W7, I have a AMD 64 dual core motherboard.

patio · « **Reply #1 on:** February 20, 2010, 09:47:02 PM »

No it doesn't...
And the reason XP does not see it all even after SP2 is probably because the drive was not setup properly when XP was originally installed...
However if you are wiping XP this is no longer an issue.
Early on in the Win setup process you will be given an option to delete the existing partition...do so...
NOTE ALL your data from the XP install will be gone so backup what you need 1st.
Then simply choose the new partition size...it can be the entire drive if you like and then continue with the install...

Geek-9pm · « **Reply #2 on:** February 20, 2010, 10:09:03 PM »

He needs to see if this was a BIOS problem. After SP2 the problem was fixed. Or so they say. This is an old issues. Here is an explanation of the problem.
http://www.48bitlba.com/
On the right -pane see Quick Facts 48-bit LBA requirements checklist.

patio · « **Reply #3 on:** February 20, 2010, 10:13:29 PM »

Well we don't know what machine this is so your point may be valid...
However i doubt it if the MBoard supports a dual-core AMD CPU...

sloan448 · « **Reply #4 on:** February 20, 2010, 10:31:08 PM »

The motherboard is a Mach Speed MSNV-939, RVN.009, 2006.

patio · « **Reply #5 on:** February 20, 2010, 11:04:51 PM »

Then you can safely ignore Geeks' advice...

sloan448 · « **Reply #6 on:** February 21, 2010, 02:38:54 PM »

I took the plunge this morning and bought W7 Home Premium Upgrade. The install went just fine. I now have the total 1.5 TB space (I left the XP partition on the drive for the *censored* of it.) I now can use all that power from my AMD 64 Athlon.
I talked to the techs at Best Buy and they told me about this software.... http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/diskdirector/. They said I had a version of XP too old (bought it about a month after it came out in 02) to be able for even SP2 to show the large hard drive. I had a choice between this and an upgrade. Because of the motherboard I went with the upgrade.

sloan448 · « **Reply #7 on:** February 21, 2010, 02:40:46 PM »

I meant Acronis Disk Director Suite 10, not server.

patio · « **Reply #8 on:** February 21, 2010, 03:23:30 PM »

Acronis is probably the best Disk Imaging app out there...on top of the other things it does...
Worth the money to me...been using it for 5 Years or so...

Computer_Commando · « **Reply #9 on:** February 21, 2010, 03:35:40 PM »

Quote from: sloan448 on February 21, 2010, 02:38:54 PM

...I talked to the techs at Best Buy and they told me about this software.... They said I had a version of XP too old (bought it about a month after it came out in 02) to be able for even SP2 to show the large hard drive. I had a choice between this and an upgrade. Because of the motherboard I went with the upgrade.

Gimme a Break! WinXP, Vista, Win7 all support NTFS volumes of 2TB.

jkolak · « **Reply #10 on:** February 21, 2010, 03:43:08 PM »

Maybe they meant too old for SATA support.

I had this issue on my equally ancient original XP CD.

I had to slipstream SP3 into it to get my hard drive to be properly recognized.

Geek-9pm · « **Reply #11 on:** February 21, 2010, 04:07:34 PM »

Hello again everybody.
In the original post he said quite clearly that his XP OS does not read above 137 GB. That is bad news.
This is a warning! Any operating system that cannot access over 137 GB is a potential hazard for any IDE drive that goes beyond that limit. This is not a joke, this is not a wild guess, this is proven fact. In the old version of Windows XP there is a driver that is defective in the sense that it was not designed for the 48 bit lba definition for IDE. This has nothing to do with SATA drives.
If you need the details I can rant on on about what happens. But this is thoroughly documented elsewhere, so you don't have to take my word for it.

jkolak · « **Reply #12 on:** February 21, 2010, 04:27:48 PM »

Now that you mention it, I remember getting the IDEfix patch with my XP CD back in the day...

BC_Programmer · « **Reply #13 on:** February 21, 2010, 05:30:54 PM »

the "137GB limit" was present with the RTM release of windows XP. 48-bit addressing was added to SP1a (or more precisely, it was fixed in SP1a).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303013

The conclusion here is that the version of XP the OP Is using is the RTM release of Windows XP. therefore the simple answer is to simply install a Service pack. (preferably either SP2 or SP3).

Quote from: jkolak on February 21, 2010, 03:43:08 PM

Maybe they meant too old for SATA support.

Your giving them far too much credit.

if that's what they meant, it what they should have said. The problem is a lot of people think that these employees are "dumbing it down" for the consumer but the fact is that a large percentage of them simply have no idea what they are talking about the begin with, and the "dumbing down" needs to be done for them.

jkolak · « **Reply #14 on:** February 22, 2010, 02:19:39 AM »

Quote from: BC_Programmer on February 21, 2010, 05:30:54 PM

The problem is a lot of people think that these employees are "dumbing it down" for the consumer but the fact is that a large percentage of them simply have no idea what they are talking about the begin with, and the "dumbing down" needs to be done for them.

Oh yes! I hate it when I'm on the phone with someone who knows less than me, and they act like they know more! (Especially if it is for evaluating a defective exchange and they won't believe you!)

sloan448 · « **Reply #15 on:** February 22, 2010, 02:01:28 PM »

I'm liking W7 more and more all the time. I have 4 gigs of RAM running now. My Internet connection is a lot faster. The whole computer is a lot faster. I can access the XP partition and the old hard drive with XP on it from within 7. So I can transfer all the old files easily. I am having some issues with older software but most of it's going OK, the stuff that isn't it's time to upgrade.

jkolak · « **Reply #16 on:** February 22, 2010, 02:54:02 PM »

I've just changed recently, too, and I'm getting to like it myself. Especially the taskbar switching makes things so convenient.

sloan448 · « **Reply #17 on:** February 22, 2010, 09:10:07 PM »

It's been a long day, 12 hours, of updating software, downloading files, trying this and deleting that. It's been well worth it. It's only been two days using W7 and when I got to my other machine with XP and it looks old.

patio · « **Reply #18 on:** February 23, 2010, 07:22:36 AM »

Now would be a good time to create an image backup of your drive and burn it to DVD's...

Allan · « **Reply #19 on:** February 23, 2010, 07:23:50 AM »

Quote from: patio on February 23, 2010, 07:22:36 AM

Now would be a good time to create an image backup of your drive and burn it to DVD's...

+1

killerb255 · « **Reply #20 on:** February 24, 2010, 08:50:35 AM »

Quote from: Computer_Commando on February 21, 2010, 03:35:40 PM

Gimme a Break! WinXP, Vista, Win7 all support NTFS volumes of 2TB.

XP if SP1 or higher is installed (which it should be). Before that, it doesn't without a hotfix, as BC_Programmer, et al have mentioned.

Also, Geek's advice is another consideration if the motherboard (or IDE controller) is extremely old and doesn't support bigLBA. If the motherboard is old, then it doesn't matter what OS you're running--you'll still be limited to 137 GB.

patio · « **Reply #21 on:** February 24, 2010, 08:54:10 AM »

Quote

Also, Geek's advice is another consideration if the motherboard (or IDE controller) is extremely old and doesn't support bigLBA. If the motherboard is old, then it doesn't matter what OS you're running--you'll still be limited to 137 GB.

It was determined it's a socket 939 MBoard...

Geek-9pm · « **Reply #22 on:** February 24, 2010, 01:35:06 PM »

Quote from: patio on February 24, 2010, 08:54:10 AM

It was determined it's a socket 939 MBoard...

Sop then, we will now assume from now on there will never ever again be a sloppy mob design by a lazy group of bogus engineers.

BC_Programmer · « **Reply #23 on:** February 24, 2010, 01:45:18 PM »

Quote from: Geek-9pm on February 24, 2010, 01:35:06 PM

Sop then, we will now assume from now on there will never ever again be a sloppy mob design by a lazy group of bogus engineers.

Quote

CPU Support: Supports AMD Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64 X2/Athlon 64/Sempron Processor, socket 939
Bus Speed: HT 2GHz AMD® Athlon™64 With HyperTransport Technology up to 2G
Expansion Slots: 4 x PCI, 2 x PCI-E 1x, 1 x PCI-E x 16
Max Memory 4 x DDR SDRAM DIMMs
Chipset: NVIDIA nForce4 (NF4-A9 A)

are you actually suggesting that a motherboard that is in such common use with a chipset that is in even MORE common use has some sort of subtle bug that makes it impossible to use drives larger then 137GB?

FIRST: the original issues with the size limit was not a "sloppy motherboard design by bogus engineers" but rather a limitation of the current standard at the time (before 48-bit LBA). I suppose they were supposed to preconceive the new version of ATA that supported 48-bit LBA, too, and build a controller for it on their motherboards.

The reason the first release of XP didn't support 48-lba is probably the same reason that windows 95 didn't support the "HALT" instruction on laptops: it didn't always work. with SP1a when they enabled it hardware was finally working properly with 48-bit LBA so they could enable it without any ill effects.

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Author Topic: Large Hard Drive and W7 (Read 6797 times)

sloan448

patio

Geek-9pm

patio

sloan448

patio

sloan448

sloan448

patio

Computer_Commando

jkolak

Geek-9pm

jkolak

BC_Programmer

jkolak

sloan448

jkolak

sloan448

patio

Allan

killerb255

patio

Geek-9pm

BC_Programmer