Inspiron 6400 hdd upgrade-size restricted to 55gb??

Question

Hi,  I am trying to install a new larger capacity hdd (Seagate momentus 5400 250gb) in an Inspiron 6400 that has a full Fujitsu 60gb disk , but am failing as the 6400 won't seem to accept that the disk is larger than the one I have taken out...what I have tried: Initially attempted cloning the disks in another system running windows 7 using Acronis 2011 but this failed twice...a bit odd as after the cloning had completed, the 'new' disk was there in Windows Computer but had no partitions...Windows said it needed formatting before continuing...? Acronis didn't say there was a problem with the procedure, but obviously this wasn't going to work in the laptop so I have been trying to install Windows xp home from a genuine windows xp disk (sp2) onto the new, formatted disk in the 6400 and the first time it went through the windows setup procedure I obviously didn't notice that the partition size was restricted to 55788 mb but anyhow this crashed with a blue screen when booting into WIndows 2nd setup stage. I put the old disk in and flashed the BIOS, removed trhe cmos battery, and have currently reinstalled the new disk and am again staring at a windows setup screen saying the 'maximum size for the new partition is 55788 mb....Is there a restriction in this BIOS? I haven't read anywhere that there is...Is it incompatible with this type of Seagate hdd?....I know I could add an external disk but I think this internal disk will fail soon anyhow...

ejn63 · Answer

You cannot clone the existing drive because of the Media Direct partition. For information on how to reset the drive to its native capacity, and why - see

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/hpa-issues.htm

dknightl · Answer

Great, thanks. I've read what I need to do....."Remember, the contents of the HPA cannot be copied. The one and only purpose of LBA-3 is to enable the HPA. So, if the HPA cannot be transferred anyway, there is no reason to keep LBA-3. Use a utility (such as Roadkil's Sector Editor) to overwrite LBA-3 with all zeroes on the original disk before attempting the cloning operation. The new disk will not get the LBA-3 code, and will not have a HPA or the MediaDirect partition....."

and I currently have the disk open in Roadkil's sector editor. ..Would you be able to help me with what to do now?

I see a screen with millions of numbers....

dknightl · Answer

ok, due to lack of response, I took the following steps to sort it....abandoned the roadkil app...too scary....put the original disk in the laptop and used fixmbr....

cloned the disk to a new, formatted larger disk...installed in laptop...worked...

Locked Topics – Laptops General

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