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uniqs
2005
o770
join:2002-06-12

o770

Member

[hard drive] I have a new 160GB HDD coming.

Hello. I have a new 160GB hdd coming (samsung hm160hc) for my old laptop (dell latitude d500) and the limit to 28-bit lba in bios to obey.

I'm settling for 120GB and windows xp professional sp3.
Is it any better to reset lba to 234,441,648 with samsung estool than just to partition and have the remainder as unallocated space?
By the way I will use windows 7 repair disk and diskpart 6.1.7601 to create this primary partition.

Before any change if estool aknowledges all 160GB, is it safe to issue a zero-fill?

Any input is much appreciated.
o770

o770

Member

Hi. I was just watching estool when the zero-fill reached eighty five percent and continued to complete all 160GB till lba 312581808. Is it possible it wrapped around at the 28-bit addressable limit?

Estool reports 48-bit lba active and everything else right. However bios shows drive size 137GB.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

3 edits

norwegian

Premium Member

If it is seeing all of the drive and only limiting the size, there maybe a bios setting that needs applying.

Edit: I see the IDE/EIDE drivers do not look like they support larger drives, however the following article may be of assistance.
»support.microsoft.com/kb/303013

This is a good article:
»www.seagate.com/support/ ··· 37gb.pdf

If the bios is limited to 28-bit though, from what I can see, you can create another (second) partition for data with the spare space of the drive.

One of the experts here maybe able to help more.
Thordrune
Premium Member
join:2005-08-03
Lakeport, CA

Thordrune

Premium Member

said by norwegian:

If the bios is limited to 28-bit though, from what I can see, you can create another (second) partition for data with the spare space of the drive.

That is correct.
Aranarth
join:2011-11-04
Stanwood, MI

Aranarth

Member

said by Thordrune:

said by norwegian:

If the bios is limited to 28-bit though, from what I can see, you can create another (second) partition for data with the spare space of the drive.

That is correct.

The problem is the primary partition needs to fall in the first 132gb.
This ensures that the everything in the primary partition is accessible to the bios during boot. (You need to be able to access the bootloader, hiberfil.sys etc.) Once windows xp or later has booted windows is not longer subject to the 132gb limitation and can access drives using its own drivers. After that point you are subject to the limitations of ntfs etc.
o770
join:2002-06-12

1 edit

o770

Member

Thanks. What about this: does estool address the entire disk or wrap around?
Here is a screenshot. It runs from freedos on samsung cd iso.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

1 edit

norwegian

Premium Member

According to the screen shot you have 48-bit enabled, it seems the limitation for you is UDMA100, if you can get that switched to UDMA133 or a bios update can , then you will be able to use all the HDD for the boot partition.

The tools are running off the 48-bit enabled LBA and seeing all the drive. The issue is Windows will not work the same way unless you can change that UDMA100 spec.
1. ATA/ATAPI-6 - Ultra DMA 5 is UDMA100.
2. ATA/ATAPI-7 - Ultra DMA 6 is UDMA133.
Windows requires the second to enable the "larger than 137GB" partitioning.

At least it is how I'm reading it.

See wiki - »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pa ··· llel_ATA
The table half way down is where I sourced the info to cross reference your image - "ATA standards versions, transfer rates, and features" and the link to the Seagate PDF gives you system requirements.

Although the screen shot suggests it is compatible with ATA/ATAPI-8. A little confusing really. I gather only a DELL updated bios will allow you to address UDMA133. Maybe send a request to support and ask this question, and a link to this topic, they maybe kind enough to help you out.
Thordrune
Premium Member
join:2005-08-03
Lakeport, CA

Thordrune to Aranarth

Premium Member

to Aranarth
The partitioning portion of the XP installation should handle that.
Thordrune

1 edit

Thordrune to norwegian

Premium Member

to norwegian
Both ATA-6 and 7 incorporate 48-bit LBA. UDMA100 and 133 refer to the interface transfer rate.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member

I understand that - how does it help or not help the OP here?
Are you saying once the O/S has been updated to XP SP1 at least, then the extension entries in the Microsoft article posted already will help?

As you do not have the uploaded bios image to work with - as it was deleted, you can not see the settings in bios.

I read off it's image of the bios setting, it was one of those cheaper bios firmwares that did not allow all settings the motherboard could cope with - nothing new for this OEM company.
o770
join:2002-06-12

o770

Member

Perhaps only samsung knows its tool writes to the entire media or not in such setup. Does it depend on bios or access disk/storage controllers by itself?

The screenshot shows estool not bios. I updated it just a couple of minutes later to hide my drive serial number by the way.
Thordrune
Premium Member
join:2005-08-03
Lakeport, CA

Thordrune to norwegian

Premium Member

to norwegian
I was just clarifying. You stated "Windows requires the second to enable the "larger than 137GB" partitioning." when that's not the case. One of my old PCs has an older VIA chipset that's capable of UDMA100. It works perfectly with a 200 GB hard drive.

What I was referring to with the XP installation is that if it's capable of going around the BIOS limitation and partitioning the full capacity, it will. If it simply queries the BIOS for the drive size and displays 137 GB/128 GiB, then that'll be all that can be used for installation. The remainder will be shown and can be partitioned separately in Disk Management when XP is installed and booted up. Either way, it shouldn't fail setup because the drive may be bigger than what the BIOS sees.

I can check it for sure tomorrow at work. There's a few old Promise PCI IDE cards laying around that haven't been updated to support 48-bit LBA. I'll take one of those, a spare 160+ GB drive, and test it with an XP SP3 install disc.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member

I'll be interested to see the results.

For the OP, what is the install disk of Windows for the project - pre XP SP1 or an SP3 install disk?

I wonder still if there is a limited bios of DELL on this laptop that is affecting the end result. DELL support only lists 20, 40, 60 and 80gb hard drives in the IDE/EIDE driver package. Hence my earlier comment on DELL OEM bios, the motherboard is fine, the bios firmware is not.

Downloads page:
»www.dell.com/support/dri ··· ude-d500
Thordrune
Premium Member
join:2005-08-03
Lakeport, CA

Thordrune to o770

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to o770
I did a BUNCH of testing tonight with a spare PC at work, three Promise IDE cards (with both old 28-bit and new 48-bit BIOSes), GParted, and a couple of XP SP3 installs . I didn't try copying a ton of data onto it though, I can try that if desired.

Putting tl;dr first, XP only seems to care about what the driver that is loaded can handle. This includes the setup portion (in turn, additional drivers loaded via F6/floppy or slipstreamed via nLite are important) as well as after the OS is installed. From what I can tell, any BIOS addressing limitation is irrelevant. I would highly recommend to do any partitioning on the drive in the XP setup though.

Looking up specs on the D500, it appears to be a first-gen Pentium M system, with a 855GM/ICH4-M chipset pair. I would imagine it should be able to cope with a bigger drive. At the very least, the included chipset driver in XP will address past it.

I have much more that I can write about this, as well as pictures that I took, but I'll hold back on that unless someone wants me to post it.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian

Premium Member


Then I guess it is a state of test and see.

Although I had an old desktop DELL now that you mention it off a friend, with similar age and vintage that handled a 200GB drive well with no issues. Laptop, I'm not so sure.
Thordrune
Premium Member
join:2005-08-03
Lakeport, CA

Thordrune

Premium Member

I wish I had a similar laptop and a spare large drive to test with. The closest thing I have is my work laptop, a Latitude D410 with a 320 GB IDE drive and Windows 7. It works perfectly.

norwegian
Premium Member
join:2005-02-15
Outback

norwegian to Thordrune

Premium Member

to Thordrune
said by Thordrune:

Both ATA-6 and 7 incorporate 48-bit LBA. UDMA100 and 133 refer to the interface transfer rate.

said by Thordrune:

I wish I had a similar laptop and a spare large drive to test with. The closest thing I have is my work laptop, a Latitude D410 with a 320 GB IDE drive and Windows 7. It works perfectly.

These 2 items suggest the OP would be fine then?
Thordrune
Premium Member
join:2005-08-03
Lakeport, CA

Thordrune

Premium Member

It's hard to say. The D410 jumped ahead a bit with the southbridge (ICH6-M vs ICH4-M), so that all but disqualifies it. FWIW, its BIOS is 48-bit-capable.

One thing I will add from my testing with the IDE card is partitioning the remainder of the drive (400 GB Hitachi) with GParted. With XP using the driver that it came with, it refused to boot when a second partition was created in GParted beyond the 128 GiB one I created with the XP setup. Primary, extended/logical, unformatted, formatted. It didn't matter. XP also didn't see anything after the 128 GiB (in other words, no unallocated space) with the stock driver.

In every case, deleting the second partition restored XP to a functioning state. Based on the fact that formatting in NTFS consumes a small amount of space (~64 MB on that drive I think), and that said used space was beyond the original 128 GiB, I would say the LBA wraparound issue mentioned elsewhere may not be a problem.

After loading the latest driver on Promise's site (48-bit capable), XP happily saw and partitioned all of the unallocated space. The same thing happened when I fed the XP setup the newer drivers via floppy, although it wasn't able to install (it kept complaining it couldn't find the drivers THAT IT JUST LOADED...). I've had that problem every time I've tried loading drivers via floppy/F6 prompt while doing a fresh XP SP3 install. Slipstreaming the necessary driver always works for me though. I didn't feel like going through the effort of doing that though .