250HD not recognised

[Belushi]

Hi all,

I've got a Dell Dimension, service tag GJSV10J, Pentium III and an Intel Desktop Board 820LP.

My problem is that this desktop board isn't developed anymore according to the Intel website and there are no updates I can find on the Dell support site after 2000/2001.

My problem is that i have a 250GB HD WD with about 200GB software and docs, I need, but after a new installation of Windows XP the HD isn't recognised completely anymore.

I completely forgat what i did 6 months ago when i got it to work.

Now it only shows half of the contents of the HD in Windows Explorer and the rest doesn't seem to exist.

Anyone who can help me out ?

[Saberwolf]

Do you know who the anufacture of the HDD is? i.e Western Digital, Maxtor

It would be woth checking and then going to the manufactures website.

The reason I say this is because Maxtor has a download available on there website for XP that enables drives bigger than 137 gig.

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/big_drive_enabler.htm

Good Luck!!

[NooNoo]

This is the 48bit lba support I would think? Have you installed SP1 for XP yet?

read here

[ADisturbance]

Western Digital has a software program on the maxblast cd you can load into windows that will allow you to configure full access for the drive

[pmshah]

I faced a similar problem when I tried to add a 160 GB hard disk on an MB which did not support 48 bit LBA access.

There are 2 ways to do it. You can't use any of the OEM utilities as it will destroy your data.

One way is to simply connect the hard disk to an MB that supports 48 bit LBA access & do "fdisk /mbr" & transfer it back to the Dell machine. All partitions & data will then be visible under Linux, Win2K, XP, 98 & ME so long as individual partitions do not exceed the OS limitations.

The other way is what I did. After doing the above excercise & since I was adding the hard disk I simply bought a USB 2.0 external hard disk casing which supported HDD up to 250 GB. for US$ 40/=

The entire HDD is now visible & accesible.

Hope this helps.

[confus-ed]

This is the 48bit lba support I would think? Have you installed SP1 for XP yet?

read here

I think so too ... but that kb lies ! - it says you need a disk that exceeds 137gig to use 48 bit addressing, no you don't you need an ata mode 6 disk or one that exceeds 137gig to use it & a compatible bios or disk controller card ...

So since, as per usual I can't quite get the original question straight, I'll say if there's no updated bios for the board, then adding an additional controller card with the support seems one way to 'fix' the original machine with the parts available (maybe a usb casing for the drive - but they can be problematic !), as for getting any info off the drive - for sure hook it up to a system that supports it & see whats there - if conected to a machine with non-compliant bios it might well only see 'some' of the install, if it works at all ...