160GB on an Old Machine

[BraveSirRobbin]

I have an ECSK7S5A motherboard running an Athlon XP 2000+ all at stock 133 mhz settings.

I installed a Maxtor 160 GB (IDE) new drive and loaded Windows XP (SP2 and updates).

I forgot to install the "max blaster" software so the entire drive is recognized by my older system (can't see drives over 137GB stock). So my drive is reporting a litte over 120GB which is fine with me because the system is back in business (old HD crashed).

I did intall the Max Blaster software which made the registry changes so it will recognize any "future" drives over 137 GB, but of course, since this drive is the windows drive it can't change its partition.

My question is, is this OK? Will any future data loss occur with this scenario?

Thanks,

BSR

 

[Nebben]

Can't you resize the partition with Disk Management? I'm not sure if it's possible being that it's the OS partition, and maybe you've already tried it... but if not, check it out.

Edit: Actually, if that's not possible, you should at least be able to create another partition with the extra space and then convert it to dynamic with Disk Management, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[keeleysam]

Use PartitionMagic.

 

[Peter]

In fact, you don't need the MaxBlast at all. What you need to do is flash the board's BIOS. Most but the oldest couple of releases do support big IDE drives.

http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Support/Pi...t.aspx?DetailID=192&MenuID=108&LanID=0
http://www.ecs.com.tw/ECSWeb/Downloads/...etailDesc=K7S5A(3.1)&MenuID=45&LanID=0

 

[Pabster]

Yep, flash to a newer bios.

K7S5A still lives!

 

[HDTVMan]

I have an old board that doesnt have a bios update to get it over the hump. 127gig limit. AKA LBA48 ability. If its your primary drive your going to have to live with that problem or get a small hard drive to use as the OS/Boot partition and do the following.

With a previous hard drive I got a PCI 133 card. Popped that into the old mobo and loaded the drivers then connected the drive and it worked great. I now have 4 200gig drives on that puppy.

You can find these cards for virtually free on e-bay. Sorry I dont have an extra. Otherwise pick up a cheap 30.00 mobo from something like newegg.

 

[HDTVMan]

Didnt see these your in luck you can get a bios update.

 

[harrkev]

If that fails, you can give windows about 5MB less, and then give the rest to Linux. Linux can completely blow by BIOS, so it does not suffer from the 128MB limit. You just need to make sure that your Linux partition starts before the 128MB limit so that you BIOS can see enough of it to boot.

This means that you can try another OS on a portion of your HD that you can' t use in Windows...

 

[phisrow]

Since Windows is booting, the drive is being recognised fine, albeit with a smaller than optimal partion. As long as you are ok with that, you should be fine for an arbitrary period of time. I'm told, however, that Exciting Bad Things happen to people who try to expand their Windows partions past the limit after the fact. Back up before you try, if you feel like trying at all.

 

[n7]

Maybe i have a newer bios, but my ECS K7S5A Pro + XP SP2 has zero issues seeing large HDDs.