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max harddrive capacity/size for dell laptops
I wonder is there any information what is the max capacity of hardrivers that we could put into our dells?
for example i need to updgrade my c600 & d610 with the new disks but i can't get which the largest hdd could be? is there any information which has delllaptop model, bios version and max supported drive capacity?
ejn63
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October 1st, 2008 11:00
The C600 is limited to 120G max. The D610 should not have a limit - both use parallel ATA drives.
PierreGee
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August 18th, 2009 12:00
Why does this myth continue to be propagated...?
I have experienced the ugly wrath of this misnomer, in that m D600 ate my 160gb hard drives for lunch every several months, to every other day, via the lack of 48 bit LBA support. IOW, when an application uses BIOS to access the HD (DOS and other unknown apps) the data is aliased to the wrong position on the hard drive and leaves XP unbootable (blank black screen, with cursor flashing in the upper left hand corner).
I've confirmed that the D610 has the same limitation, which is quickly revealed by the BIOS disk size being reported at 139gb, even though you have a larger drive installed. What really gets me is that I see folks selling 160gb drives on eBay all day long, stating that they are compatible with both the D600 and D610.
In fact, I bought a D610 off of eBay and was fool enough to assume it was 48 bit LBA enabled, which I am now trying to renegotiate with the seller, who thinks I'm nuts for having this opinion about drive size limits on the D6X0 series laptops.
Note: My first crash with the 160GB installed in my D600 was almost a full year after I first installed it, when I started filling up the disk, thus increasing the odds of data aliasing.
Sincerely,
P
PierreGee
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August 18th, 2009 13:00
DELL SUPPORT... WHERE ARE YOU ON THIS TOPIC....!!!
Why do you not enlighten folks about this debacle?
P
jackshack
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August 18th, 2009 13:00
You are looking in the wrong place for the official Dell support technicians. This is a user to user forum where we try to help each other.
I agree that Dell could be more forthcoming about the technical specs on their machines; be that as it may, we have still managed to learn quite a bit. This issue on this particular computer was resolved some time ago. The D610 is part of a family that includes, among others, the D410, D510, and the D810. While the BIOS specs for the other members of the family say nothing about 48 bit LBA, the specs for the D810 state that 48 bit LBA support was added in the BIOS update of October, 2005. Not coincidentally, the other members of the family also received updates to the BIOS in October, 2005. I have personally received replies from forum members who own the D410 and D510 that their machines support 48 bit LBA provided that they have the most recent BIOS. Forum member ejn63, who has a great deal more knowledge on these issues than I, has also consistently stated that these machines, as well as the D610, have support for 48 bit LBA provided that they are using the most recent BIOS dated in October, 2005, or later (since they all contain cumulative updates).
The question, therefore, for you is, what BIOS revision are you using? If you have revision A06 I would expect your computer to have support for 48 bit LBA.
PierreGee
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August 18th, 2009 14:00
Many thanks for your fast and VERY informative response...!
I apologize for spouting off in the wrong area, yet I'm in a bit of an anxious mood, in that I'm doing all I can as fast as possible, in that I have a D610 coming my way from eBay, which has a 160 GB drive in it and the seller says that it reports 137 GB in the BIOS (will check with him what version is installed).
Your response confuses me, in that I've read posts that claim to have the most recent D610 BIOS (A06) installed and yet the reported size is still limited to 137 GB. My own issues were with the D600, which from your post sounds like you agree that 48 bit LBA is not supported.
Again, I REALLY appreciate the help...!!!
P
jackshack
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August 18th, 2009 14:00
As I stated earlier, ejn63 has more experience in this area than I, but I have noticed that laptop BIOS revisions that are earlier than about August, 2005, seldom have 48 bit LBA support. From a historical perspective, this is just about the time that the capacity of laptop hard drives was approaching 100 GB, so I imagine that the manufacturers didn't feel a lot of pressure to provide BIOS updates for drives that did not yet exist. Another point is that they were just about to switch the drive interface for future laptops to SATA from IDE PATA. None of the SATA laptops have a problem with 48 bit LBA; it's universal.
Since the last BIOS revision for most of the IDE equipped laptops is August, 2005, or earlier, most of them have a 120 GB limit on hard drive capacity. The D600 falls in that category. A few of them, however, were still being updated in the fall of 2005 by which time it was apparent that the capacity of laptop hard drives would soon exceed the 120 GB limit. The D810 and its associated family members were among those few.
PierreGee
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August 18th, 2009 15:00
I have come back to the same conclusion that I started with, which is that the D600 and D610 do NOT support 48 bit LBA. I've listed the punch line of a great thread I found on this topic, which goes back and forth many times, only to prove that EVENTUALLY, your LT will produce the dreaded blank black screen with flashing cursor, especially when you start to fill the disk. Gerard has concluded that keeping the OS boot partition under the BIOS limit (137gb) will resolve this issue. I'm not convinced, in that what I remember of the conversations at 48bitlba.com (which is being listed as a malware site via google these days, so I can't revisit to review what I read months ago), is that keeping the OS boot partition to under 137gb, will NOT guarantee freedom from data aliasing.
Many thanks... onward ho...!
Here's that thread link: http://en.community.dell.com/forums/t/18751106.aspx?PageIndex=2
Here's the punch line from that thread:
Re: Hard Drive Size Limit for D610
Well, You can put in any size disk but only use the first 131GB !
Windows let you make partitions as large as the disk is,
as it uses its own drivers. I used a 160GB and that worked for a year.
Then the disk went fuller ans fuller and there came mister
Microsoft with yet another update of one of the many programs
needed at boot time. Too bad, it ended up behind the magic
131GB barier and the _ (dash) was waiting and waiting.
Trowing things off (disk placed in a USB holder and access it with another computer)
and then making sure everything is below 131GB solved the problem.
SO, whatever G or M value you use, do NOT go over 131 (128) GB for the first partition
XP SP2 pro on Dell D610 and 600's
Gerard.
jackshack
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August 18th, 2009 15:00
And if your D610 uses any BIOS version earlier than A06 I will agree with you. I'm afraid I've heard from too many happy users that had good experiences so long as their BIOS revision was A06. Anything before that will certainly report only 137 GB.
I've even had one user who insisted that because Windows XP uses its own disk routines he didn't worry about the 137 GB limit in the BIOS. He says that he has never had to reinstall due to a crash that resulted from the lack of BIOS support for his 250 GB laptop drive, and despite any warning that was given, said he was going to continue with the laptop just as he had set it up. Some users are just lucky, though I suspect if he ever had a problem he would be very reluctant to admit it here.
PierreGee
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August 18th, 2009 16:00
Another comment from that same thread:
I also have a Latitude D610, 2GB RAM, 250GB HD WD2500BEVE, A06, XP Pro. Everything also worked fine for a number of weeks and then the system would not boot. As previously mentioned (and as expected) , the BIOS reported the drive as 137GB but Windows saw the entire 250GB drive.
The only known problem when using drives larger than 137GB is if the initial boot loader ever tries to read NTLDR (or some other initial OS files) from beyond the 137GB point. This is the only time that Windows relies on the BIOS I/O routines and the only time there is a risk of boot failure. If this initial boot never tries to reach beyond the 137GB wall, there should not be any issue.
That said, I would love to know why the system has failed to boot. I believe that the problem can be corrected by reducing the boot partition below 137GB. I will try this using an Ubuntu Live-CD.
If anyone knows of a risk using Ubuntu to resize the partition (e.g. Ubuntu uses int13 I/O?) or whether this will be sufficient to restore Windows boot capability (e.g. once the blinking cursor appears, the O/S needs to be resinstalled?) I would love to hear about it.
ejn63
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August 19th, 2009 06:00
Are you seeing a hard drive error at boot time, or just a boot to a blinking cursor/underscore? The latter - without a disc error - is usually indicative of a mainboard failure, not a hard drive problem.
PierreGee
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August 19th, 2009 16:00
I get the blinking cursor, no error message. Although I might have experienced a MBR error once or twice. I rebuilt the HD MANY times, thinking I had some sort of root kit infection, in that I'd been running the drive flawlessly for over a year, so the size issue didn't occur to me at first. Do you agree with 48 bit LBA's site info on all of this? I ask because I think their opinion is that if the BIOS can not accurately report the correct drive size, you can't trust that it will not eventually have issues. Please say more about your mainboard failure suggestion. After replacing the 160gb drive with an 80gb, the problems have dissapeared. This is on my D600.
Thanks for joining the conversation..!