P5020D Hard drive larger than 130GB

Hi Everyone,

Just thought I would ask this question before I return my 320GB WD Scorpio EIDE hard drive. I bought it to upgrade my brother's Ultra Portable P5020D from 40GB. At first, I had a problem getting the system cloned from the old driver over because it would never boot. XP keeps on blue screening.

I thought if I instsall it from an XP (with SP3 slipstreamed) CD, I can go beyond the blue screen. I had a hard time locating a CDROM Drive... but finally found my that my brother has it. Installing XP from an XP CD enables me to boot from the new 320GB hard drive, unfortunately, XP can only see 130GB.

I went online and read a lot of about enabling large partitions, but ultimately, it is the motherboard that determines the size that windows see. The bios shows 137GB max for the new hard drive. I then flash the notebook bios to the latest 1.2.7 that is available in the Fujitsu support site. That didn't resolve the large disk problem as the bios still shows 137GB max. I'm unable to see anymore than that on Windows disk management.

The funny thing is I try the Gnome Partition Editor, which boots into Linux, it was able to see the 320GB, but not in windows.

Anyone have any suggestions on what I can do besides returning the drive and getting a 120GB instead?

Many thanks!
Gnimble

 

Your CD doesn't have SP3 slipstreamed correctly or at all. If it did it would see all 320GB. One option would be to install XP on a smaller say 40GB partition, then install SP3 which would allow XP to see the rest of the space. Then use the rest of the disk as a data partition.

 

It looks as if the BIOS doesn't support LBA. The P5020D is a 2004 notebook but it was 2006 before I was able to buy a 2.5" HDD which exceeded 137GB capacity.

See the WD Knowledgebase for suggestions on how to get around that limit.

John

 

That's the part I'm confused. Windows says it is SP3. Windows XP setup from CD only sees 130GB. When I installed it and go to systems, it says that windows is using SP3. Yet disk management says only 130GB is available for the disk. It seems to imitate the bios in LBA mode, which says the same thing. I cannot increase the size in the bios. It does not seem to support larger partitions.

John, this is what the bios says for the drive. Windows SP3 seems to limit itself to the available space the bios says it can see.

Type: Auto
LBA Format
Total Sectors: 268435455
Maximum Capacity 137GB
Multi-Sector Transfers: 16 Sectors
LBA Mode Control: Enabled
Transfer Mode: Multiword DMA 2
Ultra DMA Mode: Mode 5

I don't understand why Linux parted manager can see all of 320GB even with the limitation of the bios while Windows can't. I'll check out the Western Digital support site again, although I combed through there yesterday.

It might be a bios limitation and if there is no way around it, I guessed I will return the disk and take a 15% restocking fee hit (along with the cost for shipping back). That's too bad though because I could sure use more space.

Warmest regards,
Gnimble

 

It seems like I may have to return the drive:

"The system does not have a 48-bit LBA-compatible Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) installed. This includes EIDE controller card BIOSs. Please contact your motherboard or controller card manufacturer to determine if your hardware supports 48-bit LBA addressing."

Since this is a laptop and I've already upgraded to the latest bios available on the manufacturer website, I guessed there is no other solution. Another solution is to use the Intel Application Accelerator, but the P5020D motherboard chipset is not supported by the application... of course I can go with Linux which can see the entire drive. But I'm setting this up for my little brother for college and he bought MS Office 2007 students edition already.

Thanks for all your help,
Gnimble