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Hardware Issues

Discussion in 'Computers & Technology Forum' started by Bible Believing Bill, May 9, 2006.

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  1. Bible Believing Bill

    Bible Believing Bill <img src =/bbb.jpg>

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    OK Guys I need some help with my new system that I have built.

    1. Hard drive size limit of 137 GB. I have a 250 GB drive. I have Win XP Home SP2 so my OS will support a larger system. CMOS recognizes the drive as 250 GB. When I install Win XP it asks me if I want the partition to be 250 (actually a little smaller but I can't remember the exact number) I say yes to that size partition. When XP has been installed then my HD is only 167 MB. Now the 167 is over the 137 size limit but I have about 75 GB of unallocated space. Any idea how I can access my whole hard dive without having to have a seperate partition for the unallocated space?

    2. Installed MITSUMI USB 2.0 Internal digital card reader with Floppy Drive Black Model FA404M BLK - OEM. XP says I have floppy drive A, and Removable Media Drive E and F. However when I try to access the drive I am told to insert a disk. Yes I have a floppy in the drive, or a card in the slot. I downloaded the latest driver from the manufactures website. Any ideas before I request an RMA?

    Bill
     
    #1 Bible Believing Bill, May 9, 2006
  2. exscentric

    exscentric Well-Known Member
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    On the floppy did you try checking in controlpanel/system/hardware/device manager and see if there is indication of the floppy problem. Also it might be that the floppy ended up as the e or f for some reason, you might see if they show your floppy disk.

    On the 137 limit, where did you find that limit? If in motherboard specs you will most likely have to run some partitions or there might be updates on the manufacturer site for that problem.

    Have never heard of software fix for that but I certainly don't know everything.

    I assume you have the hard drive setup set to automatic detect.
     
    #2 exscentric, May 9, 2006
  3. Waremock

    Waremock New Member

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    Check to see if the motherboard has the latest flash bios version installed. If that does not solve your problem I would get an RMA because I have no idea of what else it could be.
     
    #3 Waremock, May 9, 2006
  4. standingfirminChrist

    standingfirminChrist New Member

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    RMA - Return merchendise Authorization
     
    #4 standingfirminChrist, May 9, 2006
  5. exscentric

    exscentric Well-Known Member
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    No!

    RMA - Real Madening Apparatus


    :D
     
    #5 exscentric, May 9, 2006
  6. exscentric

    exscentric Well-Known Member
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    Well maybe "Maddening" :eek:
     
    #6 exscentric, May 9, 2006
  7. Magnetic Poles

    Magnetic Poles New Member

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    Did you check the CMOS and what how it has the drives set up?
     
    #7 Magnetic Poles, May 9, 2006
  8. ccrobinson

    ccrobinson Active Member

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    Bill,

    I found this on a tech support message board.

    The controller in your HD enclosure doesn't use LBA 48 bit addressing, you need a better enclosure to utilize the full capacity of the disk.

    The person who had the problem posted this a few days later.

    i went to the shop the next day... the guy tried to tell me that it was win xp's fault and then just my computers fault... even tried to tell me that there was no old or new version ...jsut one that could do it all...

    he stopped when i told him i had seen on his suppliers tech desk that the old version is an outdated disontinued model. I even gave him the board number and his tune started to change then.. "oh u must have an older model... i thought we sold all those.. here take one of the new versions

    You can do some research, if you like, to determine if you have an old or new enclosure. Or, you could try this, which I found on a different website.

    In my case, since the drive was already formatted and the OS was installed, the solution was to first apply Windows XP Service Pack 1, then use Partition Magic to recover the unallocated space on the hard drive into the boot partition, an operation that took all of four seconds once Partition Magic was installed.

    If I were you, I would implement that PMagic solution.

    Hope this helps.
     
    #8 ccrobinson, May 9, 2006
  9. Bible Believing Bill

    Bible Believing Bill <img src =/bbb.jpg>

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    Ok I am an idiot. All I had connected was the cable to the internal USB, I didn't connect the floppy or power cables. That drive works good now. [​IMG]

    Bill
     
    #9 Bible Believing Bill, May 9, 2006
  10. rsr

    rsr <b> 7,000 posts club</b>
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    [​IMG]

    I once made a brand-new motherboard smoke because I connected power to a non-power connection. It worked anyway.

    I also once had a terrible time trying to get video to work on a motherboard. Hours and hours of fruitless booting.

    Then I remembered that I had plugged in an old ISA video card to use as a spacer to make sure the slots were lined up — and forgot to remove it.
     
    #10 rsr, May 9, 2006
  11. MRCoon

    MRCoon New Member

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    Bill, was the 250 GB HDD preformated or unformated? Did XP attempt format during the setup? If so did you allow XP to do the format of the entire drive? Was anything else on the HDD prior to your working on it? Did you have another OS on the HDD? What did you format the HDD to? WIN32? NTFS?

    PEBKAC is often the problem...finding it is a different story though. ;)
     
    #11 MRCoon, May 11, 2006
  12. Bible Believing Bill

    Bible Believing Bill <img src =/bbb.jpg>

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    It was a new unformatted HD. I let XP format durring install. According to Seagate since I was installing XP with SP2 thenXP should have recognized the full size of the drive and allowed me to have one large partition. For some reason it didn't.

    I figured out a work around. I took a 20 GB drive I have and copied my XP install to it, then I made that drive my master drive. I then reformatted the 250 GB drive and and copied everything back. XP now recognizes a single partition of 232 GB. Any idea why it only sees 232 with no unallocated space? I seems to be missing 18 GB.

    Bill
     
    #12 Bible Believing Bill, May 11, 2006
  13. exscentric

    exscentric Well-Known Member
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    Not sure but I think it reserves some space for the system to work. I've noticed I never get what I am supposed to have, though don't remember what amount I loose.
     
    #13 exscentric, May 11, 2006
  14. Bible Believing Bill

    Bible Believing Bill <img src =/bbb.jpg>

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    I know some space is reserved, but 18GB? Seems excessive to me.

    Bill
     
    #14 Bible Believing Bill, May 11, 2006
  15. Bible Believing Bill

    Bible Believing Bill <img src =/bbb.jpg>

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    OK I figured out the difference in capacity.

    According to Wikipedia Hard drive manufacturers use 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes.

    Windows says
    1GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes

    So a hard drive that Seagate says holds 250 GB Windows says holds 232.83 GB.


    In other words the 250 number is a marketing ploy.

    Bill
     
    #15 Bible Believing Bill, May 11, 2006
  16. MRCoon

    MRCoon New Member

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    True the 'listing' of bytes is a common misnomer you will also find that many manufactures use 'speed' as another marketing ploy but that doesn't matter to this thread. So are you good to go now? Anymore issues?

    Glad to know it was not PEBKAC haunting you that can be a troublesome thing [​IMG]
     
    #16 MRCoon, May 11, 2006
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