Need help trouble shooting harddrive installation

[Match]

The installation went ok, as did the transfer of the operating system from the old drive. The problem is that with about 2 GB of space used up, I'm running out of room on a 9.37 GB partition. (It doesn't make sense to me either). I'm trying to install a program, and it tells me I only have 5 MB of free space. I don't think it's the program's fault since it has installed successfully on other computers. Also, a drive space utility I have correctly reads used and free space, but says capacity is only 2.00 GB. Could it be that my computer is too old to recognize a partition larger than 2 GB? I'm running a Dell Dimension XPS P166s (Pentium 166MHz processor). I'm using the most recent BIOS (dated 10/98). Do I need to divide the drive into 2GB partitions? Any ideas?

 

[sunkim50]

well.. on an old old system like that, I would probably think the bios is at fault. I don't think 2GB+ hard drives were around at the time, so i would definitely try to re-partition them into 2GB segments and see if that works.

Also.. I think you might be able to buy a PCI ide controller on ebay for cheap.

 

[Green Man]

What operating system? WIN95a doesn't support FAT32, and FAT16 is limited to 2GB in 9x.

 

[Match]

Originally posted by: SpookyFish
What operating system? WIN95a doesn't support FAT32, and FAT16 is limited to 2GB in 9x.

Windows 98

 

[Green Man]

boot from WIN98 floppy and fdisk. Answer yes to support for large disks. Delete partition. Create primary partition using entire space of HD. Make partition active. Reboot and Format C: recover from backup.
If fdisk doesn't allow any partition larger than 2GB, or if Format errors, then there is a real possibility that BIOS doesn't support HD > 2GB. If that's the case, you have several options. Partition into 2GB partitions, Install PCI IDE adapter, use a drive overlay, Flash BIOS to newer version.

 

[Match]

Originally posted by: SpookyFish
boot from WIN98 floppy and fdisk. Answer yes to support for large disks. Delete partition. Create primary partition using entire space of HD. Make partition active.

I got this far ok, but when I try to format, it only formats 2,047.46 MB. Is there anything else I can try (that doesn't involve purchasing hardware)? If not, I guess I'll have ten 2GB partitions.

 

[blueribb]

Did you autodetect the new hard drive in the BIOS ?

What size is reported ?

Did you use the software packed with the new hard drive to format it ?

The new software will tell you exactly what you want to know.

 

[Match]

Yes the BIOS is set to autodetect, and it correctly identifies the drive as 20GB.

Yes, I also tried the software I downloaded from the Seagate website, but I can still only use 2GB of each partition even if I set it larger than that.

 

[blueribb]

Buy yourself a new ATA133 controller card ($20-30 on ebay).

Here's a link -> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3019692668&category=176

You could try flashing your BIOS but only if you're technically inclined and willing to take the risk.

 

[Match]

Thanks for the advice, but this isn't my computer, and I don't think the owner would want to spend more money for more hardware. Also, the computer has the most recent BIOS I could find, although it's dated 10/98. Anyone else have ideas?

 

[blueribb]

If he doesn't want to spend 30 bux to upgrade his computer, he shouldn't own one.

 

[Green Man]

Boot the computer with the Seagate disk wizard and select "Convert Drive Format" to install the dynamic drive overlay

 

[Match]

Do you mean boot from the diskettes that DiskWizard will create? I already tried the DiskWizard software from within Windows, and it didn't work. Do you think running it from the diskette will make a difference?

 

[Green Man]

I think you'll have to boot from the diskettes that you can create with the software. If you've booted to the new hard drive, you can't convert the drive you're standing on. If you mean that you set up the new hard drive from the GUI when the old hard drive was in, that might still work, but it looks like you have to specify to install the overlay. I don't think it automatically installs the overlay.

 

[blueribb]

Won't hurt to try.

I thought you already did this.

 

[Match]

I wasn't familiar with dynamic drive overlay, so I've been reading up on it. Apparently it can cause problems later down the road if I wanted to transfer the OS to another drive of a different brand (I read this here). Since I don't know what will happen to this computer in the future, I probably shouldn't do something I might not be able to undo. Thanks for your help though; I appreciate it.