Question about partitioning a large h.d. on a system that only supports 8gig

[jaytone]

Hi
I have a friend who has a Dell Pentium Pro 200 with a 3.2 gig and is running Windows98. I assume that his BIOS won't support or see anything larger than 8gig. He would like to install a 17 gig
If his BIOS doesn't see anything over the 8 gig, is the correct workaround for me to partition it into multiple drives or is he stuck with it only see it as 8 gig.
thanks

 

[AndyHui]

If the BIOS cannot address a drive larger than 8GB, then the physical size can't be over 8GB. This is independent of partition size.

I would not assume that he cannot install a hard drive greater than 8GB...see if there is a BIOS update first.

If the BIOS cannot handle drives over 8GB, there are BIOS utilities out there that will allow a large drive to be detected and installed. Retail drives should have that utility.

 

[4824guy]

You will probably have to use the BIos-overlay software that companies like WD and Maxtor supply with their HD's. THat will allow the HD to be reconized on the computer. YOu can also partition it into whatever sizes you want.

 

[BlackFalcon]

Actually, I think that some hard drive manufactures make a special utility that inhabits the boot sector of the HDD and "tricks" the the bios into supporting the large drive. I think western digital has one. Most others probally do if you look.

 

[BlackFalcon]

Darn you, 4824guy. You just type too quick.

 

[Bozo Galora]

Drive overlays are poison, even seen as a virus under certain conditions. I have recommended here several times to others to go to unicore.com and PAY (GASP!GASP!GASP!) for their proprietary old chipset mobo bios flash update. The also enables many other fine features such as ATA66 support, boot from any drive letter, support for 137GB drives etc. I have done this many times for VX TX LX mobos and have been deleriously happy at the results. I can still utilize FDISK. However, mentioning spending money for something when a free crappy workaround is available, brings out the worst in some people here.
Go ahead, flame away.
Knock yourselves out.

 

[Mem]

Just put a Promise ATA-66 or ATA-100 IDE controller card in,this card can detect anything upto 128GB,that way you don`t have to worry about the motherboard BIOS.You will need a spare PCI slot for this card,but you can have upto 4 big 128GB drives on this thing.

 

[loner]

Update the BIOS. Dell has been excellent in the past in providing BIOS updates that support large drives.

 

[jaytone]

Thanks to all who responded, most appreciated