Laptop Won't Recognize more than 8.4GB HDD

[JorgeA]

jaclaz,

Here's the drive model number:

TOSHIBA MK1517GAP

Firmware Revision A1.14 B

Let me know if you need anything else.

Thanks for the 5317.ZIP (and for changing it to a more common format!). I'll download it and the PHFLASH utility, and report back to you.

What about the idea, discussed earlier in this thread, to take out the drive, connect it to the Win98 tower that does recognize HDD >8.4GB, and create a new partition there out of the unallocated space?

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

The program displays the Disk's information Table. It shows the true size of your Hard Drive.

Using standard Geometry, you can use 1836 Cylinders in a Partitioner such as my RFDISK Program.

I have attached another test program to see if you need the BOOTMAN Overlay.

rloew,

I ran the TEST1. It returned a single line:

Test Passed

What do you think?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

jaclaz,

Here's the drive model number:

TOSHIBA MK1517GAP

Firmware Revision A1.14 B

Something "strange" on the drive side:

http://sdd.toshiba.com/techdocs/HDD_TechNotes_480040_revg.pdf

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/mk1517ga/

The drive is 16383x16x63.

Which makes:

16383x16x63x512=8,455,200,768 bytes

There are two models, the HDD2157*ZV and the HDD2157*ZF

The "TBD" of the first makes me wonder.

The second reports 25,800 cylinders, that sound like "wrong" anyway:

25,800x16x63x512=13,315,276,800

I'll have to find some more info.

What about the idea, discussed earlier in this thread, to take out the drive, connect it to the Win98 tower that does recognize HDD >8.4GB, and create a new partition there out of the unallocated space?

It's an attempt I would make anyway, as it costs you nothing (exception made for the USB adapter).

Still, it won't allow to re-partition (and possibly re-formatting ) on-place.

jaclaz

Edited June 23, 2010 by jaclaz

[rloew]

The program displays the Disk's information Table. It shows the true size of your Hard Drive.

Using standard Geometry, you can use 1836 Cylinders in a Partitioner such as my RFDISK Program.

I have attached another test program to see if you need the BOOTMAN Overlay.

rloew,

I ran the TEST1. It returned a single line:

Test Passed

What do you think?

--JorgeA

The tests you ran indicate that the Drive is fine and the BIOS is capable of supporting it. Yhe only problem is the size report.

What options are available in your BIOS for TYPE and MODE for a Hard Drive Entry?

You could Partition it elswhere or use a Partitioner that will allow you to crate Partitions beyond the assumed end of the Drive, such as my RFDISK Program.

[JorgeA]

Something "strange" on the drive side:

http://sdd.toshiba.com/techdocs/HDD_TechNotes_480040_revg.pdf

http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/mk1517ga/

The drive is 16383x16x63.

Which makes:

16383x16x63x512=8,455,200,768 bytes

There are two models, the HDD2157*ZV and the HDD2157*ZF

The "TBD" of the first makes me wonder.

The second reports 25,800 cylinders, that sound like "wrong" anyway:

25,800x16x63x512=13,315,276,800

I'll have to find some more info.

jaclaz,

I can clear up the question of the exact model number.

According to the Toshiba PDF that you linked to (thanks!), the *ZV is a 10GB drive, while the *ZF is a 15GB drive. The HDD I have is definitely the 15GB variety: Both the sticker on the back and the report by the DEKSI Hard Disk Manager program, indicate that its capacity is 15.1GB. The unformatted capacity is 14403MB, and the total sectors are 29498112 (29264 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors).

Hopefully that will help to guide your investigation.

--JorgeA

Edited June 23, 2010 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

What options are available in your BIOS for TYPE and MODE for a Hard Drive Entry?

rloew,

Thank you for the explanation of TEST1.

The BIOS Setup main menu offers (under Primary Master) a choice of Type to either autodetect the drive's values ("Auto"), or to enter the values manually ("User"). (I can also select "CD-ROM," or "None.")

There is no menu choice labeled simply "Mode," but if I change the Type to User, then all the values become modifiable, including (among others) LBA Mode Control, Transfer Mode, and Ultra DMA Mode. The default values for these three when set to Auto are, respectively: Enabled, Fast PIO 4, and Mode 2.

You could Partition it elswhere or use a Partitioner that will allow you to crate Partitions beyond the assumed end of the Drive, such as my RFDISK Program.

Just to make sure I understand: If I went with the latter of these two, would I be doing the partitioning right on the laptop (as opposed to off another PC)?

--JorgeA

[rloew]

You could Partition it elswhere or use a Partitioner that will allow you to crate Partitions beyond the assumed end of the Drive, such as my RFDISK Program.

Just to make sure I understand: If I went with the latter of these two, would I be doing the partitioning right on the laptop (as opposed to off another PC)?

Yes.

[JorgeA]

You could Partition it elswhere or use a Partitioner that will allow you to crate Partitions beyond the assumed end of the Drive, such as my RFDISK Program.

Just to make sure I understand: If I went with the latter of these two, would I be doing the partitioning right on the laptop (as opposed to off another PC)?

Yes.

rloew,

Thank you.

What do you think of the BIOS Setup "User" options for configuring the HDD that I reported? I'm wondering if they suggest that maybe the disk could be configured manually.

--JorgeA

[rloew]

You could Partition it elswhere or use a Partitioner that will allow you to crate Partitions beyond the assumed end of the Drive, such as my RFDISK Program.

Just to make sure I understand: If I went with the latter of these two, would I be doing the partitioning right on the laptop (as opposed to off another PC)?

Yes.

rloew,

Thank you.

What do you think of the BIOS Setup "User" options for configuring the HDD that I reported? I'm wondering if they suggest that maybe the disk could be configured manually.

--JorgeA

You can try one of the following settings:

29264 Cylinders 16 Heads 63 Sectors

7229 Cylinders 16 Heads 255 Sectors

1950 Cylinders 240 Heads 63 Sectors

1836 Cylinders 255 Heads 63 Sectors

Whichever matches the number of Heads and Sectors your BIOS uses.

[JorgeA]

You can try one of the following settings:

29264 Cylinders 16 Heads 63 Sectors

7229 Cylinders 16 Heads 255 Sectors

1950 Cylinders 240 Heads 63 Sectors

1836 Cylinders 255 Heads 63 Sectors

Whichever matches the number of Heads and Sectors your BIOS uses.

rloew,

O.K., I tried the various settings you proposed (thank you).

29264 Cylinders 16 Heads 63 Sectors did not work, apparently. I could enter the values and save them, but then upon rebooting the machine wanted to look for a floppy disk, and just hung there with a blinking cursor on a blank screen.

Setup didn't allow me to enter more than 16 heads or 63 sectors, so the last three options seem to be out.

Before giving up, I tried entering 29264 Cylinders *15* Heads 63 Sectors, and that DID work! Windows appears to have loaded normally.

It's not the full 15.1GB, but pretty close.

HOWEVER, the drive's Properties still gives the capacity as 8,437,104,640 bytes, while System Information reports 8046MB. So I'm not sure that I would be able to use the extra space anyway.

Diagnosis?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

HOWEVER, the drive's Properties still gives the capacity as 8,437,104,640 bytes, while System Information reports 8046MB. So I'm not sure that I would be able to use the extra space anyway.

Diagnosis?

Those are relative to the partitioned/formatted part.

Boot to plain dos and run FDISK.

Check what you see in option 4.

You can then try 31214x15x63.

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

Boot to plain dos and run FDISK.

Check what you see in option 4.

You can then try 31214x15x63.

jaclaz

jaclaz,

FDISK reports that "Total disk space is 13503 Mbytes."

When I changed the cylinder setting in the BIOS to your suggestion and rebooted, FDISK then reported the space as 14396 Mbytes. Usage is reported at 56%, which jibes with what System Information thinks is the size of the drive (8046MB/14396Mbytes).

Cool! So now the question becomes how to get the operating system to make use of the extra space. If I understand the issue, this is where using FDISK or another partitioning program comes in. Do we have the choice of either increasing the size of the main partition or creating a new partition? I'd rather just increase the main partition, unless that means losing the data, settings, and programs that are already there.

Looks like we are making progress!

BTW, I'm wondering if rloew's first setting (29264x16x63) may have worked too. The reason is that when I tried yours and rebooted, the first thing the machine wanted to do was to look for a floppy disk. This time I did happen to have a boot disk in there, so there was no hanging. Then the NEXT time I rebooted, it loaded Windows normally, whether or not there was a floppy in drive A:.

Does it matter to any part of the machine, which way we get to 15.1GB (29264x16x63 or 31214x15x63)? Or, do all roads lead to Rome?

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

Does it matter to any part of the machine, which way we get to 15.1GB (29264x16x63 or 31214x15x63)? Or, do all roads lead to Rome?

Since the hard disk is "designed" with a 16/63 geometry, if it works on that BIOS, it would be better.

All roads lead to Rome, but some are straighter/shorter!

Try with the 29264x16x63.

Just in order to say "I had told you" :

Now the point is how the drive is detected by BIOS.

Oldish BIOSes had a number of pre-determined HD sizes, then some had an "auto-detect" choice and some had an option to enter geometry of the drive manually.

The actual point now is to understand exactly how many cylinders you have actually available, I suspect that if you manually give a "higher-than-real" number of cylinders, everything will work UNTIL you get to actually write access one of those non-existing sectors.

(This usually happens when you type in the "D" of "THE END" of your great literary work - the one that took you 15 years to write and of which you have NO backups - usually it happens on Saturdays, around 11:59 PM )

About the partitions, personally I would use FDISK to create an Extended partition and in it a Logical Volume (or more than one) that I would label "DATA" leaving your current primary as-is.

I am personally not much a fan of ANY partition resizing software.

Unless I am mistaken this nice thingy here:

http://partitionlogic.org.uk/about/preview.html

does not (yet) allow for FAT16/32 resizing.

Good ol' RPM or Partition Resizer

http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/partitioneditors.shtml

may work, though.

jaclaz

Edited June 24, 2010 by jaclaz

[dencorso]

About the partitions, personally I would use FDISK to create an Extended partition and in it a Logical Volume (or more than one) that I would label "DATA" leaving your current primary as-is.

I am personally not much a fan of ANY partition resizing software.

+1

All partition resizing courts data loss.

Good ol' RPM or Partition Resizer

http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/partitioneditors.shtml

may work, though.

Sure you can use FDISK, but were I you, I'd use the Ranish Partiton Manager, v. 2.40 or 2.43 beta (my own favorite). It's more powerful and very reliable, unless your HDD were SATA (with which it has some quircks).

RPM 2.43 beta is the way to go, IMO.

[rloew]

Boot to plain dos and run FDISK.

Check what you see in option 4.

You can then try 31214x15x63.

jaclaz

jaclaz,

FDISK reports that "Total disk space is 13503 Mbytes."

When I changed the cylinder setting in the BIOS to your suggestion and rebooted, FDISK then reported the space as 14396 Mbytes. Usage is reported at 56%, which jibes with what System Information thinks is the size of the drive (8046MB/14396Mbytes).

Cool! So now the question becomes how to get the operating system to make use of the extra space. If I understand the issue, this is where using FDISK or another partitioning program comes in. Do we have the choice of either increasing the size of the main partition or creating a new partition? I'd rather just increase the main partition, unless that means losing the data, settings, and programs that are already there.

Looks like we are making progress!

BTW, I'm wondering if rloew's first setting (29264x16x63) may have worked too. The reason is that when I tried yours and rebooted, the first thing the machine wanted to do was to look for a floppy disk. This time I did happen to have a boot disk in there, so there was no hanging. Then the NEXT time I rebooted, it loaded Windows normally, whether or not there was a floppy in drive A:.

Does it matter to any part of the machine, which way we get to 15.1GB (29264x16x63 or 31214x15x63)? Or, do all roads lead to Rome?

--JorgeA

I would reccommend 16 Heads.

Rerun the TEST1 Program to see if it still passes.