clevo D470K > 137GB harddrive

Hi, I've got a clevo D470K laptop that I've upgraded the hard drive to 250GB. It will not recognize more than 137GB of the drive in the bios let alone the operating system. I've updated my bios to the latest 2.04a from euro(something..) which had no effect. Has anyone else been down this road and have anything to share about the situation?

This laptop was built by cyberpower I believe. I got the laptop second hand with a broken power port and repaired it. It works great though the harddrive was a bit gimpy so I replaced it and that's how I ended up here.

Thanks,
J.P.

 

Welcome to the NBR forums.

The HDD (ATA - IDE) in that notebook should see the 250gb fine.

I would first try to go to Disk Management (Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management) and look at the HDD size that Windows detects... if it does not see the full size then...

I would recommend to use a HDD utility like Partition Magic and let it autoboot from the CD to set the size of the partition of the HDD to the full size, then Windows should be able to see it at that size.

 

I checked under disk management also. The bios reports the physical size of the disk as 137GB so I don't feel like I'll have much luck with partition magic, but I'll give it a shot anyway. The next step I plan on taking is looking at the drive to see if it has a jumper that sets the usable size. Thanks for the quick response to my question, much appreciated.

J.P.

 

you can also try to make the partition of the HDD with a USB enclosure, then install it back into the notebook.

 

Which OS (SP?) do you have ?
Try running GParted and see if it recognises the whole 250GB/232GB ?
If it does, make 130-135GB partitions.

 

The os is vista with sp1 currently being installed. I'm gonna try a tool from the manufacturer of the harddrive to see if that takes care of the problem.

 

If that doesn't work, then by all means, put the physical drive into an external enclosure, plug it into another system, and partitition it into two or more partitions, none of which exceeds 137GB. When the drive so partitioned is reinstalled in the system in question, you should be able to sidestep the 137GB limitation.

That is precisely what I did with my VAIO Z1A, which also has a BIOS-enforced maximum hdd size of 137GB (i.e., the maximum hdd size is hardwired into the BIOS and cannot be changed). I initially installed a 160GB hdd in the VAIO, and found that the system simply could not "see" anything above 137GB.

I even managed to do it after I had reinstalled/updated the OS on the hdd (starting with XPSP1, and updating all the way up to earlier this year - needless to say, I did not want to do that again).

The only other "trick" I would recommend is to remove the drive letter assignments from each of the partitions you create and just let the BIOS decide what drive letter each partition should get when you put it back into the Clevo. The reason I did this was that, since I was repartitioning the drive on a computer that already had a c-drive, I couldn't assign the "c" drive letter to the system partition on the rejiggered hard drive while it was in the enclosure. So, I deassigned the drive letters, put the rejiggered drive back in the VAIO, and -presto- when I booted, the BIOS (or the OS, still not sure which) automatically assigned drive letter "c" to the system drive, the system booted just fine, and I ended up with three partitions totalling 149GB - 12GB more than I was supposed to have under the hardwired 137GB limit in the BIOS.

Incidentally, the 137GB limit is an artifact of the original ATA specification, which used a 28-bit addressing mode. The topic is touched upon in this Wikipedia article.

 

Well the bios doesn't support 48bit lba addressing in this laptop and I've emailed clevo directly about it but I don't expect any good news from the response if I even get one. There are _hacks_ to make it work but they all risk data corruption from every source I've gathered info from and this just isn't really an acceptable solution for me, it may be for others. The only sound solution to this problem is a bios update which I don't expect to get. As far as partitioning the drive goes, the 48 bit addressing issue is not on a per partition basis, it's per drive. Creating the partitions in another fashion isn't going to enable the system to read the partitions without a operating system dependent software hack which I don't want. So with that said, I'm gonna let it go for now until I hear back from clevo on the situation.

Thanks for the time and tips guys, I appreciate it all the same.

 

What? You mean I'm not actually able to read/use the three partitions I have that, in the aggregate, are greater than 137GB?

You don't need a software hack because the Win OSes already have the capability to read 48-bit LBA; all you need to do is work around the limitation in the BIOS, which is restricted to 28-bit LBA. The problem is that you cannot set up an unpartitioned drive on such a restricted BIOS and partition your way into more than 137GB because, without prior partitioning to set up the logical structure that the OS can read, the OS will simply defer to what the BIOS is telling it is there. Instead, what you do is precisely what I did - you partition the drive on another system by plugging it in as an external drive (PnP drives like that are not subject to BIOS restrictions in the first place such as this 28-bit LBA issue, and thus the only limitations on using them are, typically, in the OS). Once you've created the logical structure that the OS can read without assistance from the BIOS, the OS will simply ignore what the BIOS is telling it and proceed to read the drives directly - that is one of the whole points of the ACPI protocol - taking control of the hardware away from the antiquated, hardwired BIOS as much as possible.

Look, if you don't want to at least give it a try, well that's your business; however, this isn't some sort of jim-cracker hack that runs the risk of data corruption, this is a perfectly acceptable work-around for an antiquated BIOS system that was intended when the ACPI protocol was drafted and implemented.

 

Sorry, but you WILL NOT hear back from Clevo.

They filter all emails except from their Clevo vendors and importers.

Clevo does NOT support end-users, you HAVE TO go through your Clevo vendor in order to get any support.

 

Tried gparted under Linux, same thing, doesn't see more than 137GB of the drive. Also tried partitioning the drive off from an external usb enclosure with no luck as I expected. Any idea what model the motherboard that comes in the D470K is? I have 2 ideas for last resort measures to make this work. 1) Get a bios update from the motherboard manufacturer if there is one available or 2) Try to hack the phoenix bios myself with the Phoenix Bios Editor and the phoenix bios 4.0 release 6 documentation which will probably brick the laptop. The 2nd is probably the much cooler solution if it works.

Ah yeah, I tried some other tips from 48bitlba.com to get the remaining disk space readable with no luck (generic ide drive with biglba support and western digital tool suite which is supposed to support it.)

 

the motherboard is designed and manufactured by Clevo.

if there is no BIOS update to support the full 250GB HDD, then you might be out of luck.

I would contact the Clevo vendor that you got the notebook from to see if there is a solution.

But if it comes down to it, I would just install a 160GB drive and use the 250GB drive as an external with an enclosure.

 

I ended up putting the 2.02 bios that was on the laptop when I got it back on. The 2.04a update from eurocom that I found in these forums caused random kernel panics because of some ACPI bugs in that bios.

I didn't get the notebook from any of those vendors, it was given to me. The powerport broke off the motherboard because of a half-a**ed soldering job from the manufacturer. After that I was given the laptop so I fixed it. The deeper I dig about this particular clevo based notebook the more evidence I find that this whole line seems to be lemons.

There's one things that's bugging me though, that I don't understand: The 64bit processor... why? The laptop only has 2 DDR ram banks and there is no DDR ram chip on the market over 1GB in size so that negates having 64bit for addressing more ram. These notebooks seem to be aimed at people wanting a portable gaming computer, not scientists and mathematicians so that leads me to my second and last reasoning for having 64bit, faster math operations in the processor on large numbers.

Maybe I'm missing something key to 64bit computing and gaming, I don't know, but in the back of mind I can't help but think that in 2004 or 2005 when this laptop was built and 64bit computing cost a lot more that some kid and his parents got ripped on a marketing gimmick about 64bit computers and gaming. Wasn't my money, but hey...

 

here is the latest (2.04) bios straight from clevo if you want to try it

 

Same results, thanks for the link and the effort though. Appreciate the help and ideas you guys have given to try and help me resolve this. Thanks for everything.

 

So, the LBA issue has been resolved ? You can see the whole 250GB ?

 

Nope, it hasn't.

 

Can you post the northbridge and southbridge names in CPU-Z (motherboard page) ?

 

This may be more info than you wanted but it was a quick cut & paste:

General Information :
NorthBridge : VIA K8T800 (VT8383)
NorthBridge : AMD K8 Bridge
NorthBridge : AMD K8 Bridge
SouthBridge : VT8235 PCI to ISA Bridge

NorthBridge Information :
Architecture : Northbridge
Manufacturer : VIA (VIA Technologies Inc)
Revision : 01
V-Link Bus Width : 8-bit
V-LinkRate Speed : 8x
V-Link Host Clock : 66.97 MHz
V-Link Speed : 535.76 MHz
V-Link Bandwidth : 4286.08 MB/s
AutoDisconnect : Yes
DownStream Priority High : No
UpStream Priority High : No

NorthBridge Information :
Architecture : Northbridge
Manufacturer : AMD
Revision : 00
Bus Speed : 200.5 MHz
HT Link : 801.8 MHz
HyperTransport Clock : 800 MHz
Upstream : 16-bit
Downstream : 16-bit
HTT max. Support : 1600 MHz
RAM max. Support : DDR (400 MHz)

NorthBridge Information :
Architecture : Northbridge
Manufacturer : AMD
Revision : 00
Bus Speed : 200.5 MHz
HT Link : 801.8 MHz
HyperTransport Clock : 800 MHz
Upstream : 16-bit
Downstream : 16-bit
HTT max. Support : 1600 MHz
RAM max. Support : DDR (400 MHz)

Memory Information :
Type : DDR-SDRAM PC2800
Frequency : 173.7 MHz
DRAM/FSB Ratio : CPU/15
Supported Channels : Dual (128-bit)
Activated Channels : Single
ECC Diagnostic : No
CAS Latency (tCL) : 2.5 clocks
RAS to CAS (tRCD) : 3 clocks
RAS Precharge (tRP) : 3 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS) : 7 clocks
Bank Cycle Time (tRC) : 10 clocks
Command Rate : 1 T
DRAM Idle Timer : 16 clocks
Shared Memory (video) : Yes

Physical Capabilities :
Multi-Processor : No
128-bit RAM : No
ECC : Yes - Disabled
ChipKill ECC : No
HTC : No
UnGanging Support : No
Multi VID Plane : No
DRAM Scrub Rate : Disabled
L3 Cache Scrub Rate : Disabled
L2 Cache Scrub Rate : Disabled
L1 Cache Scrub Rate : Disabled

APIC Information :
Version : 0.03
Maximum Interrupts : 24
IRQ Handler enabled : Yes

Device Capabilities (PCI) :
Latency Timer : 64 clocks
I/O Access : No
Memory Access : Yes
Bus Master Capable : Yes
Special Cycle Recognition : No
Memory Write & Invalidate : No
VGA Palette Snoop : No
Parity Error Response : No
Cycle Wait : No
System Error Line : No
Fast Back-to-Back : No
Detects Parity Errors : No
User Defined Format : No
PCI 66Mhz Bus Support : Yes
New Capability List : Yes
PCI Support : AGP
PCI Support : Hyper-Transport
PCI Support : Power Management Interface
PCI Support : Hyper-Transport

 

The chipset/basically the southbridge controller does not support 48-bit LBA. Hence, Clevo did not provide support for 48-bit LBA, or has the option disabled and hidden from the end-user, in the BIOS.

If the chipset does not support 48-bit LBA, and the BIOS does, then partitioning the drive into numerous 137GB partitions won't work. Whenever data will be accessed from the 137GB+ space, Bang - the HDD will go from UDMA Mode into PIO Mode.

So, if you decided upgrading or replacing the HDD, go for a Samsung HM160HC/HM80HC, as they are faster, and much better IDE drives.

 

Thanks for the info man, I appreciate it.

 

I dunno. According to the datasheet for the VIA VT8235M chipset, rev. Mar. 16, 2005, the VT8235 southbridge is capable of handling UltraDMA-133/100/66/33 transfer protocols, which suggests that it is compliant with ATA/ATAPI-6, at least. ATA/ATAPI-6 introduced 48-bit LBA, at least according to the Wikipedia article AT Attachment.

Based on that, it looks like the southbridge in the OP's system should be able to handle 48-bit LBA, and therefore deal with hdds over 137GB.

The VT8235M datasheet can be downloaded free here.

 

Aye, the datasheet does state that the above southbridge has an ATA-6 interface, so 48-bit LBA is definitely supported.
Though, I came across alot of threads, all stating the same 137GB LBA problem with the VT8235 controller.

It is worth checking in the BIOS if there is an option to select the HDD access mode, which will have options such as CHS; LBA; Auto; Large....

 

There's not. The bios is phoenix and I've got their bios editor so i can edit the roms myself. Short of that, I'm out of ideas.

 

I don't think that it's a simple 'change this bit' fix in the bios. I see a lot of stuff about LBA support in the bios editor but nothing that indicates if it's capable of 48bit support. From what I've read, it has to at least be running with 28bit lba support or I wouldn't even be able to see > 8GB of the disk. I don't think there is any more I can do and the risk of bricking the laptop by hacking on the bios myself isn't really worth it. Lets face it, I probably will screw it up beyond being able to re-flash it on the first try. I'm just gonna write this one off and be happy with where it stands. I got the laptop for free in a non functional state and fixed it. Now I've got another laptop in my collection with a kick a** 17" 1680x1050 display (the only reason I took the laptop to begin with). I'll pick up a 120 drive and an enclosure for this 250 and call it a win since I'm out of very little money for the whole project.

Thanks for all the help and information, it's much appreciated and the process has been an interesting ride so much that it's pretty much held my attention exclusively when I'm not in class or working.

 

I just looked back and didn't see if this had been asked:

Does the system use SATA drives, or so-called PATA drives?

 

It uses PATA.

 

Ok. I thought I remembered seeing something in the chipset spec sheet that said it had support for SATA as well, and I just wanted to make sure we were barking up the right tree, here.