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Formatting trouble
I have just installed a second hard drive (Ultra ATA100 160 GB Seagate) in my Dimension 4400 1.6 GHz desktop. Intend to use the drive soley as additional storage. New drive is installed correctly, I believe. My computer recognizes the drive at 149 GB. I partitioned the drive at 128 GB, and formatted this section NTFS-based successfully. PROBLEM: XP will NOT format the remaining 32 GB partition, despite several attempts. Any suggestions?
BD
wmalinowsaki
41 Posts
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January 17th, 2004 00:00
BD,
The BIOS on your computer only LBA(Large Block Access) will only accept drives up to 137 MegaBytes(128 Megabytes in actual terms) in size. In order to take advantage of the full disk, you need either a:
1)BIOS upgrade that supports 48-bit LBA, which allows drives to be up to 300 MegaBytes.
2)A controller IDE card with on-board BIOS(which supports 48-bit LBA).
Black Diamond
9 Posts
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January 17th, 2004 01:00
Thanks for the info. I upgraded the Bios thru Dell, but it unfortunately did not solve the problem. I may have to purches the IDE card you suggested with on board BIOS. Glad I updated the Bios, anyhow.
BD
Black Diamond
9 Posts
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January 17th, 2004 02:00
In addition to upgrading the BIOS and upgrading ATAPI.sys for support greater than 137 GB, no luck. Even though Disc manager shows 149.0 GB, I cannot format the total drive. Any other thoughts? If I have had enough (and I am close), is there any ham in leaving 40 or so gig unallocated/formatted (besides a waste of $$). Will this impact performance?
BD
wmalinowsaki
41 Posts
0
January 17th, 2004 09:00
BD,
Go to this page, might solve your problem:
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_winxp.html
Black Diamond
9 Posts
0
January 18th, 2004 19:00
Thanks again. Unfortunately, did not do the trick. I have successfully partitioned/formatted 128 GB of the drive. I may have to settle for this right now. If you have any other suggestions, they are appreciated.
BD
DELL-Cares
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June 21st, 2020 12:00
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