Re: HARD DISK Compatibility

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

From: Bob Harris (rharris270_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 03/21/04 

Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2004 11:40:28 -0500

There is a BIOS limit on some motherboards at about 32 Gig. In the past
hard disk makers have gotten around that limitation with clever software,
but that software tends to be operating system dependent. This oftware
oftewn has names like "EZ-BIOS" or similar. So, what worked with say win98
may not work with XP.

The safest thing to do would be to revert the PC back to its former
operating system and copy the data off of the slave. Then, get an ATA/100
PCI adapter card, which has its own disk controllers and its own BIOS. Then
hook the slave to the PCI card and format it, then copy the data back. I
used one of these in a win98 machine and it worked fine. I then upgraded to
XP and all was still well. In general, a "hardware" solution to a BIOS
limitation is less likely to be operating system dependent than is a
software solution.

You may be tempted to just plug the save into a PCI adapter card, since
copying Gigs is no fun. I suspect that may not work, since the clever fix
to addressing beyond 32Gig is also controller specific, and the new
controller on the PCI card may not work with the fix. However, it would not
hurt much to try it.

As for where to off-load the data on the drive, in case you have to? A
external USB hard drive is a good bet. If USB 2.0 it will be almost as fast
as internal disk transfers. If USB 1.1 it will be a lot slower, but it will
still work.

If you get desparate, their are services that can copy data from hard
drives, but they are not cheap.

Good luck.
"KevG" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:37970F27-F033-4B87-8A65-EFB64E73856F@microsoft.com...
> I have 2 hard disks, a master 13G & a Slave 80G. When I installed XP the
system only recognises my slave drive as 33G. Worse than that all the data
I had saved on my slave drive before installation is not accessable as it
does not recognise the file format. grateful for any help/ideas.

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