Hard drive not recognizing full capability

Well that is good news.

NAW ! that is GREAT NEWS

I have just a bit of a problem ladies and gentlemen with the line below in italics that I needs to be addressed.

Yes, they are all assigned a drive letter by Windows

If you are referring to the HD lettering then I believe it is DOS that assigns the drive letters before Window ever comes into the picture.

I believe they can be read when booting to the command prompt at boot up and at that time Windows is nowhere in site.

And they had better not be changed by Windows. If they are then something is wrong somewhere.

( unless you are messing with XP then I do know strange things happen )

If it were not DOS we would not be able to see them in DOS.

BillyBob

 

If it weren't for all of you super intelligent peeps, with your clear and concise explanations, making something that at first seemed unreachable, into something easy and not so forboding, I would have never been able to do this.

I know it's simply a first step, but it takes away the 'fear' of messing with anything inside of the *insert scary booming music here* "CASE ", LOL. I have a long long way to go to reach the computer knowledge all of you possess, but hey..I love that you all have it..so you can help people like me!

I honestly don't know how to thank you all for taking the time to keep up with me and this thread. I printed out this whole thread to refer back to when needed, as I gained a wealth of HD knowledge from it ..*although I, personally, am still on step one* lol. But hey..I finally took a walk into the jungle..and I don't have a scratch on me *yet*

BTW, Deloris, LOL@ your Z drive. I can't wait until I can confidently partition my drives like you do

 

BB, in answer to your "problem" with my statement. At this point, I don't care who assigns the drive letters. Somebody does, & Windows has never changed mine.

Anyway.

Most of my partitioning was done with cheating tools. Notice, I said most of it. Not all of it. As I admitted in a previous post, I used Partition Magic to do some of it, but even in Partition Magic, if you don't watch your P's & Q's, you can destroy data real fast. I almost did it once, & my heart leaped like a scared frog. I realized what I was about to do right before pressing the final button. Man was I glad I didn't press it, & then realize it later.

 

It might not make a difference to you.

But it might to an inexperienced user such as Lis171

We have helped her get a great start on things so there is no need to start tossing confusion at her.

And I know a lot of new users that have the idea that Windows does everything.

Which I think even you will agree is wrong.

BillyBob

 

BillyBob.

Even me? I have always admitted that I am not a computer Guru. There is much I don't know, & I still have much to learn, but everyone slips up now and then in the vernacular. Everyone!

I try not to commit such attrocities, but don't always succeed. I do keep my language simple, and straightforward though. Hence, better understanding, hopefully. I am sure you know me well enough to know by now that it was not intentional. Thanks for pointing my slip of the tongue out to me though.

Lis,

I humbly apoligize for any inadvertant confusion I might have caused you. It definitely was not intended.

 

I regret that I missed this one, but having just read all of it - its probably just as good. Fortunately it has a happy ending and Lis learned a bunch, however, anybody that reads this whole thread objectively should be concerned with the amount of mis-information it contains. Good intentions are an admirable trait, but .................

 

Liz, I saw where you made the partition and where FDISK /STATUS showed the partition. I missed where you formatted drive D. Which I presume you did.

Don't forget to get your docs back.

Now, it's time to fix that floppy drive...

...however, a blue screen on failure of a floppy drive to write seems a bit extreme. The upside is floppy drives are cheap. If you decide to fix the floppy drive, it might be time to start a new thread.

Congrats on your success!

 

That part was NOT directed at you Deloris But it is a mistake that many users make.

I saw what appreared to be an error and wanted to correct it.

Actually it was meant as a halfa**d joke. And I apoligize if it was taken any other way. Wording does make a difference.

I have several users right around home here that have machines ( with 98 ) and I had one hell of a time convincing them that DOS is still alive and quite well. And does a lot of work before windows ever hits the scene. ( even though Microsoft trys to make us think different )

BillyBob

 

drive size issues

If it was my pc and I had this problem with a HD, I would install Partition Magic. Then see if you can't repartition the second drive and use up all the room. I break up my drives into multiple partitions, depending on what I need space for. Generally I have a 1 GB part. for swap file,a large partition for applications, 1 for games, and one for data (I also do software development and like my SQL and Acces databases saved to a seperate partition).

Partition Magic will also allow you to reletter existing drives, so that you can make your zip drive the last one. Also make sure that the 2 hd's are on the same controller. Use either a master/slave combo or cable select. On the second controller make sure your fastest device is first on the chain or you'll see a noticeable difference in performance.

After using Partition Magic for a few years, I HATE fdisk. PM is so much easier to use!

 

OK..I think I have run into one small problem. Everything on my computer detects all 74.5 GB's of my slave drive. I even did a Belarc scan, and it says:
Maxtor 6 L080J4 [Hard drive] (80.02GB) -- drive 1, whereas before I fdisked, read 8.40.

I have even put some stuff on this newly fixed drive, and all is well, meaning, that it shows only a thin line of blue..with tons of empty space, and reads as capacity: 74.5GB. *3.64GB of used space..70.8GB's free space*

Even the fdisk /status recognizes it. Here is my problem. When I restart my computer, and pause on the first screen after the Dell logo, I am still getting this!

D0_WDC_WD204BA_LBA_19470MB_Ultra_DM4
D1_Maxtor_6L080J04_LBA_10809MB_Ultra_DM4
D2_Not_detected
D3_Not_Detected
IDE_Master_Bus_enabled

Is my BIOS still not detecting this? Yet everything is working fine as far as GB's go. Any ideas as to why?

Also, I figured out what was wrong with my floppy drive. It was my screen saver. When I turned it off, the whole "create startup disk* operation ran from start to finish without any blue screens *whew, since my service contract is up with Dell..and I didn't want to renew it* And lastly, Bitbyter, yes, I did format the D drive. Now what did you mean by "get my docs back? "...Transferring my files back onto that slave drive?

 

> Maxtor 6 L080J4 [Hard drive] (80.02GB)

It's supposed to be an 80 GB drive. It says this is a 80 GB drive. Good-to-go. You don't care what it said before.

> When I restart my computer, and pause on
> the first screen after the Dell logo, ...

D0 is for Drive 0 which is the first drive in your system. Engineers start counting at zero. In your case this is the 20 GB system/boot drive or drive C.

D1 is for Drive 1 which is the second drive in your system. In your case, the 80 GB drive or drive D.

You don't have a drive 2 and drive 3, so they are not detected. Thanks be...

> Also, I figured out what was wrong with my
> floppy drive. It was my screen saver.

I run no screen savers. No experience with that problem. I have no desire to experience that problem. I probably won't run any screen savers in the future either.

>Now what did you mean by "get my docs back?

I meant whack your friend up-side the head and tell him to give you back your stuff. Keep all materials related to your computer in your possession.

 

run fdisk with a 98 boot floppy and check the size of the partitions.

 

Lis,

It looks to me like the boot up screen is saying that it is not recognizing your Zip, & CD ROM drives. Have you checked them both out to see if they are working? If not, then it needs to be fixed.

I agree with pweegar. Partition Magic is the cats meow, but some things should be learned the hard way.

BillyBob,

Oh, I am aware that DOS is still alive & kicking & all that, and I wish I knew more about DOS. I know just enough to get my system up & going. Microsoft will tell us anything to get us to buy their stuff.

I was not really angry, just a bit tired after all we'd all been through, and it just hit me the wrong way. As a fully active participant in the thread, you did right by pointing it out. I apoligize as well to you. But concerning the one below, well.................

To the person who wrote the statement below.

At the risk of sounding really hateful here, and alienating people so that no one ever helps me again for any reason. Yes, as per the norm, there was some misinformation, but we all tried hard, & did our best to guide, & obtain the happy ending we got, on her first try even. I don't know about how the others feel, but for someone else to come in at the very end, & criticize us, & then................himself on his way, is not one bit kosher!

 

No knowing the algorithm for this reporting...

There is no media in the CD-ROM and ZIP drives. What size would be reported?

 

I apoligize as well to you.

Deloris.

Understood and Accpted.

But concerning the one below, well.................

Who cares about missing. mis-leading or mis-understanding info. I believe that is almost impossible to avoid in a problem like this. Every Machine may react differently to the same adjustment.

But no matter. The differences or mis-understandings were settled to the satisfaction of all parties ACTUALLY INVOLVED and the end results appear to be satifactory.

Dealing with a machine which is QUITE different than our own is not and easy task.

And anybody that comes in AFTER the problem(S) is ( are ) solved and any differences settled has no business critizing.

OH ! BTW. If a certain party reads fully they will see that some the the missing ( or mis-leading ) or incomplete info involved MICROSOFT. Nuttin new there.

BB

 

Thanks for the replies

What I meant about that boot up screen is; when it detects my second drive ..D1 - the Maxtor, it says it is only 10809MB's as opposed to my master drive D0 - which is 19470MB's, which it read before I fixed with fdisk..meaning..it doesn't look like it's recognizing the full space again, even though everything else on my system does. If it did, it wouldn't be less MB's than my master..which is only 20GB's.

As for my CDROM and Zip...Bitbyter was right..they are empty, but they work great when accessed

 

So, is this thread going for a record for length?

>D0_WDC_WD204BA_LBA_19470MB_Ultra_DM4
>D1_Maxtor_6L080J04_LBA_10809MB_Ultra_DM4
>D2_Not_detected
>D3_Not_Detected
>IDE_Master_Bus_enabled

Perhaps the BIOS has a limitation similar to FDISK? Perhaps a disk manager is required with this BIOS?

If Windows still sees the drive OK, Keep your 3.X GB of data on that drive backed up awhile until you are sure things are not going to get flakey. You could try filling up the drive once to see if that is going to happen, say past 64 GB. Make redundant copies of the data on the drive to do this.

I don't recognize that kind of reporting from a Dell machine. Again, I don't have an XPS-T machine to look at. And so far, for the brief looks I've had, I can't find a statement about what the BIOS limitations are regarding size of fixed drives supported.

On the Dell machines I've seen, the reporting looks more like English:

First Drive: Fixed Disk 0 - WDC WD204BA
Second Drive: None
Third Drive: ATAPI CD-ROM - CRD-8400B-(sm)
Fourth Drive: None

Like that.

...and Dell identifies the BIOS in this manner, for instance: A06 ...which is sometimes expanded to Phoenix BIOS 4.0 Release 6 which could possibly be found on an XPS-T series system. A04 would be Release 4 which also could possibly be found on an XPS-T system. The date found in the chip by analysis programs is useful, but sometimes not how Dell identifies the BIOS.

I'll presume that it is possible that from BIOS to BIOS and from system to system, the setup program could be different and probably is. Some setup program settings have a "CD-ROM" or "ATAPI (removable)" selection in addition to "NONE" and "AUTO ". Some only display what you configured while some will recognize the specific drives and instead of what you configured will display the Mfg., model, and maybe other information.

It's also possible that some don't recognize CD-ROM drives and that you are dependent on the OS to recognize them and load appropriate drivers.

I would expect that the first two drives on the first controller interface would be configured as "AUTO ". I would expect the CD-ROM to be the first drive on the second controller interface and that it would be designated

"CD-ROM" or "AUTO ". I have no idea how one might configure for an IDE interface ZIP drive. It's not a CD-ROM albeit it is probably an ATAPI device. My only ZIP drive experience is with those having parallel port interface (and which WNT4 thinks is permanently installed.)

Now, in keeping with my not-so-vast experience with internal ZIP drives, some instructions for installing not-a-CD-ROM devices on IDE controllers state that the device should be the secondary Master with the CD-ROM becoming the Slave. Some such instructions actually state that the config should be "NONE" for these devices, meaning that the OS (or loaded interface programs) will be responsible for finding the device(s) and the BIOS will just skip any such detection attempt.

In fact, therefore, I cannot tell if this behavior is normal or not.

------------------

Yeah, it's kind of ch-easy to take pot shots after the fact--it would-uv been more useful if he had actually pointed out what was misinformation, and then, from his well of knowledge and authoritative sources, had enlighted everybody else.

 

OK, I just found a reference that says:

DELL COMPUTER CORPORATION
BIOS RELEASE NOTES
Copyright 2000 Dell Computer Corporation. All rights reserved.

System: Dimension XPS Txxx
Version: A10
Release Date: 7/12/00

1. Correctly display the drive capacity for hard drives that are greater than 64 GB.

So if you have a BIOS before A10, that's probably why you see what you see...

 

Thank you BillyBob.

Isn't that the truth.

Looks like it might be.

 

Ok, on a Dell Forum, I found some unsubstantiated lore that says that the largest drive that Dell tested on an XPS-T was 80 GB. One could suspect then that up to 137 Gb would work.

If you wanna read it for yoursef, try here.