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    Sony PCG-K415S hard drive problem over 137gb

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by Ollie222, Feb 1, 2010.

  1. Ollie222

    Ollie222 Notebook Consultant

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    Hi,

    I've just fitted a new 320gb WD3200BEVE hdd to a Sony PCG-K415S laptop that is about 5 years old for a friend.

    While it worked the speed was just appalling as the drive was operating in PIO mode and wouldn't go into DMA mode.

    If I check the drive in the bios it's only reported as being 137gb while the drive is much bigger than that. I have upgraded the bios to the latest version R0108X3 from the Sony website.

    Now there are a lot of problems with drives being over 137gb caused by 32 bit instead of the newer 48 bit addressing and there is a lot of info about it on the web but nothing specific to this model.


    After much searching I've found a driver that does enable DMA transfer for a larger drive but only for the first 137gb and anything after this is in PIO mode.

    The speed difference is huge, 45MB/s with DMA and 3MB/s with PIO and in PIO mode the cpu usage is huge causes the fans to spin up.

    I've made a partition of 120gb which contains the the most commonly used things items and the OS.

    I assume the problem lies with the bios or the Ali M5229 controller not being able to support > 137gb and I think they're just going to have to live with it but I thought it worth asking does anyone know of a solution for this problem?
     
    Ollie222, Feb 1, 2010
    #1
  2. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    It sounds like 48-bit LBA is not enabled in the BIOS. See if there is an option for it, and update BIOS if possible.

    It is entirely possible that you will not be able to use the full capacity of the drive, though lets hope that is not the case.
     
    Greg, Feb 1, 2010
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  3. H.A.L. 9000

    H.A.L. 9000 Occam's Chainsaw

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    FAT32 or NTFS, if 48-bit LBA isn't enabled, then it won't matter. It can't address more than 137GB if 48-bit LBA isn't enabled.
     
    H.A.L. 9000, Feb 1, 2010
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  4. Ollie222

    Ollie222 Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks for the replies.

    Maybe I wasn't completely clear in my original post but even though the bios shows the drive as being 137gb even with the latest bios (and there are no options relating to the hdd in the bios) I do actually have access to the full capacity of the drive inside windows.

    The drive is formatted to NTFS.

    The problem is that when using the drive the first 137gb transfers data at about 45MB/s but the last 180gb operates at about 3MB/s.

    The problem seems to be that DMA mode is used for the first fast part and it reverts back to PIO mode for the latter slow part. The difference is very noticeable.

    It's the speed issue I'd like to resolve as it's so slow to the point of being unusable.
     
    Ollie222, Feb 2, 2010
    #4