Hard drive not recognizing full capability

Well.I looked in setup, and it says my BIOS is A08, so that is before A10,..but if Dell claims my 80GB should be recognized..I don't understand why it shows up with only 10809 MB's detected. Weird!

BTW..my computer is on a Phoenix BIOS 4.0 Release 6. It says that on my screen when I reboot.

 

It sees the 80 GB drive. It lets you use the 80 GB drive. The algorithm used by the reporting function to calculate space is confused. Windows knows how to handle the drive. Close your eyes at startup time.

 

The algorithm used by the reporting function to calculate space is confused.

If that is actually in the ( or due to ) the BIOS will it or will it not maybe cause problems on down the road aways.

And splitting the 80gig into smaller parts will not fix the BIOS reading. The BIOS should see the full capacity of the HD. The same as it sees the 20gig drive.

If free space is not reported properly it can cause problems.

Most of the time when my scandisk has to run after a bad shutdown the problem always seems to be free space.

It is not my machine. And I could be wrong. But I myself would not trust that 80gig HD in that machine. Too many things keep changing. One time it says this and something else another time.

I may just be thinking in writing too. Or even just adding food for thought.

BillyBob

 

I definately would not trust that hdd. I do have a couple recommendations. Either should take care of it.
1st idea is to upgrade your BIOS. That is not that hard, but if you have a power failure while doing it, you could very well need a new mobo. That is just a caution! In fact I have upgraded this motherboard 5 times.

2nd option.

Get a ATA 66/100/133 Pci adapter card. It has a bios that fools the onboard bios and lets you use the full hdd. Also they allow for adding 4 more ide devices. This is the card that I am using. Just to give you a example.
If you go this route, then install the card, boot up, install the drivers then I reboot, then shutdown, move the hdds to the ata card and bootup.
Now if you are doing a fresh install, you normally can do that with the hdds attached to the ata card. Just remember to add the ata drivers after the install of window.

 

That may well be true. BUT. I believe the strength of the power supply would dictate whether it could actually be done or not.

BillyBob

 

Can i install Norton System Works on drive F just to check for errors or allocated space? Would that work to fix anything? What kind of problems could this slave drive cause since BIOS is not recognizing the full capacity, Billybob?

What i still do not understand is, why is it functioning and recognized by everything else, with the full 80GB's, if BIOS doesn't recognize all of those?

And Train, as for installing a card with the HD..disconnecting, reconnecting the drives etc.. ..that's a whole new step for me to take..lol. Another 150 posts in this thread would probably take me through that one! LOL

 

Now, I thought I was keeping up with everything pretty good here, but now I am not so sure. Did you partition that 80GB. It seems I recall your drive F was your Zip drive, and I am not aware of being able to install anything onto a Zip drive. Never tried it though.

 

Ooops..I meant Drive D It's like my drive F changed it's name under the Witness Protection Program, and I keep 'a' slippin'. lol

 

Never mind

Lis171 was posting as I was writing.

BB

 

Yes you could install it to the D drive, but why? You already have it installed to the 20GB OS drive. That's good enough. System works ought to be able to trouble shoot it from where it already lives.

If you're wanting to put an OS on the D drive, & have a dual boot system, then that is another horse of another color altogether. Mucho Grande work involved there for ya.

Myself, I would be careful what I put on D until this problem of the BIOS, or whatever it is, is settled, or it proves not to be a big deal, one of the two.

Think about doing this. Next time you buy a computer, find a good reputable place that builds them, and have one built to your specifications. Study up first on systems & decide ahead of time what you want to accomplish with one. So many more of us are familiar with those kind, and generic ones are so much more easily upgraded, and so much more easily diagnosed when problems occur.

We've been having severe storms here for two days & more on the way. Had to switch to my backup Internet OS, cause the main one is goofing up. Plus the ISP keeps kicking me off.

 

I will 2nd, 3rd, 4th that suggestion.

I had ONE ( and only one ) OEM machine and will NEVER have another one.

BB

 

Afterthought

I am not familiar at all with Phoinex BIOS, and I suspect most of the others aren't either. Award Winning BIOS is the one I am familiar with.

 

I've never owned an OEM machine, (Brand Name), and from the added problems, over & above the normal ones, I've seen that people have that do own them, I will NEVER own one.

 

OOPS. Just saw this:

Dell Dimension XPS T
IntelP3,CU,600/100,256K,SKT


I think you should know, that that computer was made when dell was using a propietary PS [power supply} And that one would be a bear to replace. Very expensive for a Dell or you would have to buy the adapter to use a normal ps.

What size is your PS?
And while you are looking in the case, count the number of free PCI slots you have. They are white in color.

No this is not the longest thread I have been involved in By a long way.

 

propietary PS [power supply}

I believe ( now that it has been mentioned ) the PS just might figure into this problem.

PS may not have power enough to run that drive properly. Or maybe ANY 2nd HD.

Don't know. I may be off track again.

BillyBob

 

BillyBob
I believe it is large enough for the 2nd hdd. and it will more than likely pull the card also. I was curious as to the size so I can get a idea of what all she can add.

 

Had to do some digging:

here is what the doctor ordered...
http://www.centrix-intl.com/default.htm
under category
OEM replacement

Dell ps adapter looks like this.



A copy paste of this for you also.
DellCv Convert Dell motherboard power connector to standard 20pin power supply connector *Click on spec for picture* $9.99

And this PC Power Recommendation will get me fairly close. Outdated, yes it is.

 

Thank you, you reinforced the point perfectly.

 

We were here throughout the whole thing trying our best though, weren't we? So I see no reason for abject criticism of anyone.

 

Good grief, guys, get a grip!

First, I'm probably wrong about the BIOS designation of Axx being tied to release. Looks more like some kind of rev number. Regardless, that designation is how Dell gives out information about their various BIOS'...

The Phoenix BIOS made for Dell is not a generic Phoenix BIOS. There are all kinds of things in it that are specific to Dell hardware. If you go down a list of changes for the BIOS' from A04 through A11 for that system model, you will see a lot of changes that are specific to Dell hardware. So your choice for any BIOS upgrade is to get it from Dell. As far as I can tell, Dell only put out one BIOS upgrade for the XPS-T (but I could be wrong) and that predates the BIOS she has. Any advice about whether or not that Motherboard will accept a more recent BIOS would have to come from Dell. And then you'd have to procure one.

I've flashed a few BIOS chips and sometimes the process goes bad. Once for me. Nothing I did or didn't do that I can tell but the system didn't work after that. This is probably not a good experience for somebody who just learned FDISK and is working with one system.

It's an XPS-T. At 600 Mhz, it's good for awhile yet, but save the dollars that you would put into anything other than the hard drive you already did and maybe memory, and when you have saved enough, get a computer with a more recent pedegree. And it looks like she has enough memory and video to push a few polygons already.

I don't like that the Dell power supplies are non-standard. I also don't like the same thing about IBM, HP, and Compaq. PCPowerCooling sells power supplies wired for Dell Mobo's. And the adapter, mentioned above, seems to be advocated in more than a few places. Most often, however, what seems to go wrong with power supplies are the muffin fans. I open 'em up and solder in new muffin fans. The only other failure mode I've experienced includes releasing smoke and experiencing the bitter-sweet smell of burnt phenolic. Not yet with a Dell.

Why mess with the Dell power supply?. I don't understand overclocking either. I had a friend that put in 50% more cash making his Celeron 300 eek out another 20% (or something like that) than I paid for my 450 Mhz PIII. Somehow he managed to only count the cost of the CPU when talking about it though. The power supply she has should run both hard drives. Guessing, it should be a 200 watt power supply. The XPS-T is not Dells low end machine which at that time I think was a Dell Dimension. I think Dells all time low end for power supplies was 90 watts, btw. ...BUT what, about any of the problems discussed, points to a power supply problem?

The drive parameters are read from the MBR. I don't think the BIOS not doing the math right for reporting purposes should present any problem as long as nobody looks at the number. She seems to have ok operation of the drive so far. What's the free space reported by the OS?

Using 3 GB out of 80 GB and the suggestion is add a controller card that will allow 4 drives? How about buy a cheap box, put server software on it and three 120 Gb drives in it and network it with the client. Run RAID. Have the client keep all the data on the server and leave a 10 GB drive in the client. Or run two cheap boxes with a 120 GB drive in each. Turn box number two on once a week to get the backup data from box number one. I think gigabyte NICs are in order for this.

There's a place for OEM machines and it's usually for people who don't really want to know what BIOS means and would rather spend maintenance money than study time. They'd rather have hand-holding service come with that, thankee. It's a good choice for those people. I build my own machines, btw, but then somebody told me what BIOS means.

Let's wait for something that gives an indication that there is a problem with using the drive or attempt to test to see if that may happen or go looking for some indication that somebody else who has already done the same thing (that person exists somewhere) found out that it works or didn't?



I gotta flak jacket.