OK. I have an older computer. AMD K6-2 on an MVP3G-M mobo. Award Modular BIOS 4.51PG.
I originally had fairly small HDs. 8GB, 2GB, etc. Then I bought a 80GB whopper. I had a feeling I'd have a problem with this one. I did, froze at boot. read the instruction manual. Oh, a Cylinder Reduction Jumper. How thoughtful. Alright, so I use that, and can use this WD caviar 80GB as a 32.7Gig Drive. So I figure, alright, any other drive I get, I'll need to format for that. So for my next few purchases I get more WD Caviar 80GB drives. Then, I go to the store again, and *GASP*! they don't have any 80GB drives! and I need one (all the others have important data). So I figure I'm wasting money by getting the 160GB caviar that I find. I put it in, with the Cylinder Reduction Jumper, Open Disk Management, (WinXP).To create the partitions, And emit a confused "*censored*" when I see the size of the drive. 149.05 GB. Exactly the amount it CAN be.
I'll admit this is a good thing. What I want to know is why the heck I can't use a 80GB drives full capacity but a 160GB drive shows up fine. And also, how the heck am I breaking two barriers of my BIOS? I have no Disk Drive Overlay program installed, and my BIOS is supposedly limited to the 30-something Gig limit described previously.
Any insights appreciated. oh! heres a more detailed system setup:
AMD K6-2 350Mhz 512MB RAM
OS: Windows XP Professional SP2
IDE: Primary Master WDC WD800JB-00JJC0 (80GB recognized as 32.7GB)
Primary Slave: WDC WD1600AAJB-22PVAO (super-sized drive. 149.05GB
Secondary: Samsung WriteMaster DVD burner
Also, heres a chonology starting with my first run-in with the limitation.
the first drive I got I set up to replace my third Hard Disk, E:. I burned the contents to a DVD, replaced it, and was greeted with a hang at the BIOS detection phase.
only slightly undeterred now, I consult the manual (when all else fails.....) and learn of the Cylinder Reduction Jumper. So I implement it, and the drive is recognized. I boot into XP, run diskmgmt.msc, and format my new HD as the 32GB size it now exposes to the BIOS. All goes well for a short while. them problems arise. the drive powers off for no reason, XP PANICS totally, since the swap file was there, complains about failed writes, makes a new Pagefile on C:, all my programs crash (since they no longer exist per-se, no swap file....), and explorer restarts. E: drive has VANISHED. according to eventvwr, the drive was removed without being properly prepared for removal. huh. my DVD drive dissapears too when this stuff happens, so I suspect a faulty IDE ribbon cable. I replace it. still problems. I begin to recall my experience with power supplies. so I swap around the power cables. seems to go well. Then the problem re-appears.
Long story short, I eventually buy my 160GB drive to replace my current C: drive. expecting another 32GB drive. to my amazement, when I install it, it is recognized properly! as 149.05GB. The rest of the story of my copying data to the drive has catches but they are not relevant to this topic and I will omit them for brevity.
Anyway, I think I have posted enough information to get a few expert opinions on this anomaly. Thanks for any reply.
