8gig limit?

[DIRTsquirt]

I just put together a 900mhz celeron for my sisters family.. I used the ECS P6VAP-A+
it uses VIA® VT82C694X (NB) & VT82C596B (SB) chipsets.
I installed a 30 gig WD harddrive. Fdisk says it is all there in fat 32 as one drive.
windows says it is a 8.39 gig C drive..
22gig go
:disgust:
can anyone shed any light on my problem or point a finger in the right direction

 

[Iron Woode]

there are 2 reasons:

1. old BIOS. try the newest BIOS.

2. the drive itself has a jumper that makes it compatible with old systems. Remove that jumper then.

If the answer is 1 and the BIOS flash doesn't work then use overlay software like MaxBlast from Maxtor (a free download).

 

[KF]

If I understand correctly, what you did with FDISK should preclude there being any problem with the an old BIOS or a HD limiit jumper.

This is what happened, right?

You started with a brand new blank HD.

1. You used the FDISK that came with Windows and partitioned the HD into one 30G partition marked as type FAT32.
FDISK said it was 30G.

2. When you installed Windows 98, it formatted the HD.

3 After Windows 98 was installed, in My Computer it says you have 8G total space. No other HD letters are listed.

Can you go back into FDISK and confirm that there is still one single 30G partition? If so, something very weird is happening in Windows.

Can you start a DOS prompt in Windows? What does it say when you type:
dir c:\

Does it say 8 gig? 32 G?

 

[Buz2b]

BIOS or jumper problem. Won't show in FDISK but will when you boot to windows. Probably the BIOS which, as suggested, might be solved via an upgrade to newer version. If that is not an option, the HDD comes with a "software overlay" that will enable the system to "see" the total space.
All this just as Iron Woode posted earlier.

 

[DIRTsquirt]

Yes KF that is the procedure I followed except the hd was used in another system b4.. I fdisked it and let windows format it on install.
Booting from a boot disc or a dos window from within window nets the same data from the fdisk command.. both methods state its a 30 gig Active Partition.

the current bios is 2 revisions from the newest.. I have never flashed a bios b4. and am somewhat hesitant. If fdisk is reporting it right.. doesnt that mean the
hardware is seeing it correctly and that win98 is botching it up?

Am on my way to the wd website to make a determination on the jumper Iron Woodie pointed too.

ecs website lists no compatability issues.

and then off MS I hate searching the database....

Thanx again gents I will look into these suggestions!

 

[KF]

>Yes KF that is the procedure I followed except the hd was used in another system b4..

OK, it was not completely blank. If it was used in a different system, it could possibly have a disk overlay or disk manager on it. This loads from the HD before the operating system. (It does not load if you boot from a floppy first.) What FDISK will report may be inconsistent with what Windows reports. Windows 98 does things in a way that goes through this overlay or manager. By doing it this way, Windows will handle drives larger than the BIOS was designed for.

To cover all possiblities, you can download the setup program that WD has for free, Data Lifeguard. It has something to remove a disk manager. The program will automatically install its own disk manager if your system needs it too. The WD site is great and has lots of info about all this.

I don't know the age of your motherboard. I'm guessing it was made in the last two years. If your BIOS was dated within the last two years, it is not likely that your BIOS won't handle a HDs up to 32G. Possibly over 32G could be a problem, but most likely it can handle over 32 too. But it may have a setting which causes the BIOS to handle the drive incorrectly. The setting should say something like LBA and not something like LARGE DISK.

Since FDISK does everything through BIOS calls, I don't see how a BIOS that is too old could make FDISK report 30G for a HD that is actually 30G. It would report the size incorrectly. But if FDISK is going through a disk manager, then the BIOS could be too old. The question then becomes: Why is Windows not going through the disk manager if FDISK is? IAC, the HD should be redone to make sure there is no disk manager since things are so odd now.

This purpose of the jumper that limits the size of the HD which is reported to the BIOS is to cause the HD to reported at less than its capacity. Since the true capacity is reported , something would have to be getting that info correct anyway, maybe a disk manager. The info on the jumpers is easy to find on the WD site, so you can make sure its right.

What if the BIOS does not need a disk manager, but there is one on the HD from the previous system, and the HD limit jumper is on? Exactly why this confuses Windows, I don't know, but it confuses me.

 

[tcsenter]

I would flash the bios and low-level format that sucker (zero write format).

Windows 98 setup will format the HDD? I didn't know that. I've [accidentally] tried to install Win98 on an unformatted HDD and setup refused to proceed saying I needed to format the disk.