Is it possible to stick a BIG, MODERN hard drive in a stinky old laptop?

[Kick Start]

The hard drive crashed on my 2003 Dell Inspiron 5100. I get an error message with a blue screen that says, 'Unmountable Boot Volume'. I ran a diagnostics test and the hard drive is bad. So I'd like to stick a 160GB hard drive in it. Three different Dell hardware techs say I cannot use anything bigger than a 40GB hard drive - if I do the laptop won't work, they say. I thought I'd run this past the forum. In general, this is what all three techs had to say:

"If you put a 160gb in there it will get detected by the system however, when you install the operating system (WindowsXP) it will not detect the hard drive. You cannot install an OS on a 160gb hard drive on this system. This system will not support beyond 40gbs. The system is not designed for anything more than 40gbs. To work with the system we need to boot to Windows. So, that only happens when we install Windows on the system. And that basically gets installed on the hard drive. So, how can you work with the system when you cannot install the operating system on the hard drive?"

"The maximum hard drive it will support is 40gb. If you put a 160gb drive, probably the motherboard would not support it, the computer would not detect it. Your computer was manufactured in 2003. At that time there was a different technology. So the technology was not that advanced. It would detect only 40gbs. Every model has a different hard drive. A 120gb, a 160gb... would have different components. So now, if you install this hard drive onto an old computer there is the possibility it would damage the hard drive. Yes, it would damage the hard drive. And the computer would not detect the hard drive. Also, it might freeze up at startup, when the Dell logo appears at startup."

http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/category.aspx?c=us&category_id=7296&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=anav&p=1
http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=gen&cat=prod&k=hard+drive&rpp=12&p=1&subcat=2999%2f5683%2f5694%2f7296&rf=all&nk=f&sort=K&nf=38689%7e0%7e418114%2c11976%7e0%7e167321&navla=11976%7e0%7e167 321&ira=False&~srd=False&ipsys=False&advsrch=False&~ck=anav
http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/notebooks/0,1000000335,10003105,00.htm
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,997075,00.asp

[BC_Programmer]

Not surprising- some older BIOS's didn't support more then.. I believe it was- 40-bit LBA, which coincides with around 37-39GB of disk space.

My older, K6-2, for example, freezes on boot if I place one of my newer HDs in it. However, if I set the "cylinder reduction" jumper, it recognizes and can use the drive, but only around 40GB of it.

However what the techs say is somewhat self-conflicting as well as misinformative as to the reason- sticking a larger drive into it will be unlikely to damage the hard drive or the laptop- worst case scenario is the laptop doesn't recognize the drive and freezes.

In either case, it's a BIOS limitation, and has nothing to do with Windows or the operating system, or drivers, or any of that, as they appear to (inconsistently) claim.

Now that being said, you can stick the drive in, and use it, (if it allows for the "cylinder reduction" jumper setting as my drives have), but  you probably won't be able to use it without it. (it is, however, worth a shot, IMO, since 2003 was around the time that the BIOS limitation limiting it to ~40GB was "lifted" so to speak.)

[Kick Start]

Well wouldn't updating BIOS take care of the BIOS issue  or is it more complicated???

[soybean]

I looked at BIOS updates for the Dell Inspiron 5100 here and saw nothing about accommodating larger hard drives. 

You might post your question at http://en.community.dell.com/forums/, since that'a Dell-specific forum.  However, I suspect you won't get any different info that what BC_Programmer posted here.

Have you thought about an external USB drive for extra storage?

[patio]

I'm wondering if the drive was formatted ahead of the install @ 40G and had the remainder partitioned as an extended partition if it would trick the workaround...

Course i've had a few Scotch's and the clarity isn't exactly all there...

[BC_Programmer]

I'm wondering if the drive was formatted ahead of the install @ 40G and had the remainder partitioned as an extended partition if it would trick the workaround...

Course i've had a few Scotch's and the clarity isn't exactly all there...

As far as I am aware, the issue would lie with the detection by the BIOS, which detects the drive geometry, independent of it's partition setup- if the issue is anything like that I faced with my old machine, as well as a few others from that period.

I cannot recall the specifics, but I believe that the BIOS tries to read the LBA length of the drive into a value that doesn't have sufficient bit-width, often resulting in an overflow or a very strange size reported by the BIOS.

[Salmon Trout]

This page suggests a size greater than 40 GB is possible

http://electronics.become.com/100gb-notebook-hd-4200-rpm-2-5in-dell-inspiron-5100--compare-prices--c207369215

[soybean]

You could buy a bigger hard drive and, if it does not work, get an external enclosure to convert it to an external hard drive.  A 40GB limit does seem quite small for a 2003 model computer.  But, I think I'd probably not go greater than 120GB in chooosing a new hard drive.  The larger it is, the more likely you're going to run into the size limitation issue.  Here's a detailed reference: Hard Drive Size Limitations and Barriers - In Depth

I do not know whether all the info in that reference pertains equally to desktop and laptop systems.

[Geek-9pm]

soybean, I gave you a thank you. Good link.

[soybean]

Thanks, Geek-9pm.