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    Changed HD, need advice

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by colonypark, Mar 31, 2005.

  1. colonypark

    colonypark Newbie

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    I have an older Sony PCG-SR5K. IIRC, it came with a 7gb hd. Like a dummy, I put my elbow down on the case right above the hd and crushed it. When I bought a new hd, i got a much higher capacity drive of the identical type, an IMB travelstar. IIRC it's 60gb. Anyway. The computer will only recognize the first 7.82 gb. How can I make the remainder of the drive usable? Can I flash the bios to make it recognize the change? Is there a cheap, easy way to partition this drive into recognizable sizes?

    Thanks
     
    colonypark, Mar 31, 2005
    #1
  2. drumfu

    drumfu super modfu

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    you'll need to flash the bios if possible. check sony's site or contact their support to find out if there's an upgrade that will allow you to see larger HDs.
     
    drumfu, Mar 31, 2005
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  3. colonypark

    colonypark Newbie

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    Sony insists that the hard drive is not user replacable, so they don't offer any type of support. [V]
     
    colonypark, Apr 1, 2005
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  4. Thaiwoo

    Thaiwoo Notebook Geek

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    Check to see if the HD manufacturer has a drive overlay software. It helps (or used to) to overcome Bios limitations. With it, the system would recognize the full size of the drive. Used it myself in the past but like I said not sure if they still write them.
     
    Thaiwoo, Apr 1, 2005
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  5. colonypark

    colonypark Newbie

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    Thanks for the advice. According to the Hitachi website, they expect that the bios is already configured for their hard drive. They provide no method of making their drive work with a limited bios.

    I've been thinking that perhaps I could just take the drive out of the notebook, install it with an adapter to my desktop, and partition it into numerous 7GB partitions. Would something like that work? Do you think the bios would recognize the other partitions?
     
    colonypark, Apr 2, 2005
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  6. Tobias

    Tobias Notebook Enthusiast

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    I don't think this will work. If you use Linux or NTFS under WinXP/2K you can access the drive anyway but with a lower performance. Otherwise you need a BIOS update or some overlay software such as EZ-Bios or Disk Manager.
     
    Tobias, Apr 29, 2005
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  7. colonypark

    colonypark Newbie

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    <blockquote id='quote'> quote:<hr height='1' noshade id='quote'>Originally posted by Tobias
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 8, 2015
    colonypark, May 4, 2005
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  8. Tobias

    Tobias Notebook Enthusiast

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    The overlay software should let you access the whole drive. Usually you can get the overlay software from the harddrive manufacturer. They might have some other name for it, tough. Look for a "hd install program" or something similar. Otherwise you can probably download it from some other harddrive manufacturer. Do a search.
     
    Tobias, May 4, 2005
    #8