Laptop Won't Recognize more than 8.4GB HDD

[JorgeA]

Mijzelf,

Thanks for this explanation, it really helped to make things MUCH clearer in my mind.

So I would do what's been suggested -- to create an extended partition with FDISK, and then create a logical partition within the extended partition. The how and why are all coming into focus.

Would it be right to say that having more than one primary partition is most useful to people who want to install more than one OS on their machine, so that they can boot from one or the other?

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

rloew,

I like the structured progression of your description. Together with Mijzelf's explanation, it made the whole issue so much easier to understand. Thank you.

O.K., so I won't resize the existing partition, but rather create an extended one and then link it to a logical partition. Would you recommend RFDISK for this, or should I stick with FDISK?

And I'll go with the 31214x15x63 arrangement. Time to use the utility dencorso recommended way back, to make a copy of the BIOS settings.

--JorgeA

[dencorso]

Yes, but to multiboot what you want are 2 primary partitions, not one primary and one extended, with a logical one inside. Sure, it's possible to boot from a logical partition, but that's not very easy to do, nor necessary, especially with such a small HDD. On the other hand, since only they can be made active, primary partitions allow to do this trivially. Moreover, one can have 4 partitions whatever in a single HDD, and you're creating just 2, so I'd say two primary partitions is the way to go.

BTW, I think, at this moment, you would profit much from musing over the following Wikipedia entries: MBR, EBR, VBR and Boot Sector. The English Wikipedia is very good for computing matters.

[JorgeA]

Yes, but to multiboot what you want are 2 primary partitions, not one primary and one extended, with a logical one inside. Sure, it's possible to boot from a logical partition, but that's not very easy to do, nor necessary, especially with such a small HDD. On the other hand, since only they can be made active, primary partitions allow to do this trivially. Moreover, one can have 4 partitions whatever in a single HDD, and you're creating just 2, so I'd say two primary partitions is the way to go.

BTW, I think, at this moment, you would profit much from musing over the following Wikipedia entries: MBR, EBR, VBR and Boot Sector. The English Wikipedia is very good for computing matters.

dencorso,

Thanks a bunch for the clarification, and for the links. I'll study them tomorrow when I can absorb them better. (It's after 2:30 AM here!)

I won't be multibooting. Does that change the assessment of what I should do, or would you recommend two primary partitions anyway?

--JorgeA

[dencorso]

You won't be multibooting right now. Of the future, you cannot say that for sure. Especially since this is your study/learning machine. Two primary partitions would keep that possibility open. Moreover, I see no reason to create an extended partition to just host a single logical partition inside. But that's what FDISK would like you to do. Let's say it's the standard MS way to do it. Except for multibooting, both alternatives would be roughly equivalent, at the end of the day. Then again, creating an extended partition with alogical one inside wastes a tiny bit more disk space than creating a second primary partition, but the difference is negligible for most purposes. But both alternatives are good enough.

[Multibooter]

Is it possible to still find these older versions [of PartitionMagic 8]? I'll look around the Web.

I would think that it can be found, but finding it as a commercial product may be quite difficult. I wouldn't touch the Symantec version of PartitionMagic, only the original version by PowerQuest.

With jaclaz, rloew and dencorso at your side you have got the best experts in a very complicated subject area. Let them guide you, I only posted here because my old laptops have the same BIOS as yours.

Nevertheless, once you got your current problems solved, I would still recommend PowerQuest PartitionMagic 8, it has worked for me on my old laptops under Win98, together with the multi-booting software System Commander. jaclaz, however, has reservations about both PartitionMagic and System Commander.

I have had no issues with having several partitioning tools installed under Win98, and even if one doesn't use PartitionMagic for partitioning, its diagnostic messages (or absence thereof) are reassuring.

When you say that you check the partitioning with Partition Table Doctor -- is that like a doublecheck to make sure that PartitionMagic didn't screw up?

Yes, for double-checking and fixing partition table errors created by various partitioning tools under Win98/XP. Partitioning tools are like any other software: full of bugs, so having several tools at your disposal can be helpful.

I would call Partition Table Doctor 3.5 a must-have software under Win98. It has saved my neck many times, e.g. when Norton Disk Doctor made bad partition table repairs and trashed the HDD. In your case here, I would have run Partition Table Doctor first, to see what PTD is saying. But it is also possible that PTD would not have flagged anything wrong, so spending money on PTD would not be a guarantee that it would solve your current problem.

[jaclaz]

@jorgeA

FORGET (temporarily) whatever you have read.

Read THIS:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080726065134/http://www.ranish.com/part/primer.htm

(I am linking to the Wayback Machine as the curremnt page seems like not having images anymore )

It seems to me the clearest expalanation around.

About the historical part, when it all began, there were NO partitions.

Then the good guys found a way to fit 4 partition entries in the MBR (first 512 bytes sector of the disk/device).

Then they saw that 4 partitions could have been too little a number and invented the Extended partition and Logical Volumes inside it.

The difference is simple:

MBR contains a Partition Table where each entry points to a given address on the disk.

In the case of a Primary partition this address contains the actual partition (i.e. "something" that starts with the bootsector).

In the case of an Extended this address contains a pointer to ANOTHER pointer, this latter pointing to the address where the actual Logical Volume or parition (i.e. "something" that starts with the bootsector) resides.

Primary:

MBR->Entry in PT->Primary partition

Logical Volume:

MBR->Entry in PT->Extended partition->EPBR->entry in PT->Logical Volume

@Mijzelf

JFYI, there are ways to boot from Logical Volumes inside Extended (by correcting the "sectors before" data in the bootsectors) and with Letter Assigner you can change pretty much everything related to default drive lettering.

There is not an actual "standard" for partitioning and formatting, most of the work has been done based of a certain set of assumptions derived by the way the original FDISK program and the various IBM/MS originated filesystems worked.

The problem just like any non-standard setup (i.e. the same reasons I pointed out for Partition Magic or System Commander) is that you never know if and when you will run some other program that have a different set of assumptions about how the drive should have been set.

For the record, even MS itself has not very clear ideas, compare with:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9897

jaclaz

[JorgeA]

dencorso,

So I guess that I'll be taking a harder look at Ranish Partition Manager!

Let's say that we decided to set up two primary partitions, using RPM or another similar tool. Could there be compatibility/usability problems in the future? It's a different animal, but -- just as an example -- I understand that drive overlay software can present a problem if you upgrade the BIOS or connect the HDD to a new computer.

The other question has to do with how much space to allocate to each primary partition. At this point the HDD only has ~1.2GB in it. After defragging, would it be reasonable to break it into two equal partitions (~7.5GB each)?

BTW, I read the Wikipedia links you gave me, and they were very informative. I especially liked the EBR entry, as the charts helped me to form a better mental picture of how it works.

Not that I'd do this, but it was pretty neat to realize that, using these techniques, you can take a 1TB drive and break it up into 1,000 different 1GB partitions/volumes!

--JorgeA

Edited June 26, 2010 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

With jaclaz, rloew and dencorso at your side you have got the best experts in a very complicated subject area. Let them guide you, I only posted here because my old laptops have the same BIOS as yours.

Multibooter,

It sure is a complicated subject area. Thanks to the great folks on this forum, though, I understand it a heck of a lot better now than two weeks ago.

Nevertheless, once you got your current problems solved, I would still recommend PowerQuest PartitionMagic 8, it has worked for me on my old laptops under Win98, together with the multi-booting software System Commander. jaclaz, however, has reservations about both PartitionMagic and System Commander.

I have had no issues with having several partitioning tools installed under Win98, and even if one doesn't use PartitionMagic for partitioning, its diagnostic messages (or absence thereof) are reassuring.

It's good to hear that these various partitioning tools can work together, I had wondered about that. It's not an either/or thing.

I would call Partition Table Doctor 3.5 a must-have software under Win98. It has saved my neck many times, e.g. when Norton Disk Doctor made bad partition table repairs and trashed the HDD. In your case here, I would have run Partition Table Doctor first, to see what PTD is saying. But it is also possible that PTD would not have flagged anything wrong, so spending money on PTD would not be a guarantee that it would solve your current problem.

Once again, thanks for the recommendation. This last paragraph hit home because I do use Norton Disk Doctor on my Win98FE tower, and I didn't know it could screw things up royally like that.

I've been using Norton SystemWorks on that PC for 7-8 years, and recently I've started to wonder how good the Norton/Symantec utilities really are. Thanks to this forum I started to use CCleaner for the registry, and the first time I ran it it found tons of things to fix -- even though I religiously run the SystemWorks One-Button Check (that includes a registry checker) every week. I also have Norton 360 on my Vista machine and use the registry checker on it. When I put CCleaner on that system, it found more than 800 bad entries that N360 apparently missed. And now the Vista runs so much better. Hmmm...

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

jaclaz,

Thanks much for the link from the Wayback Machine. The illustrations helped a lot in visualizing what's going on.

I'm glad to see this article, because (among many other things) it addresses a question that I was going to ask -- whether it would do any good to put the swap file on the new partition. Apparently not. (There's no way in Win98 to put the swap file on a USB thumb drive, is there?)

As I said to dencorso, if we're going with two primary partitions instead of the primary and an extended partition, then it looks like I should be taking a closer look at Ranish Partition Manager, or *maybe* PartitionMagic (I know that you don't recommend it).

--JorgeA

[jaclaz]

For the record, having two primaries is mostly pointless, as a logical volume inside extended is also safer (from dumb virus or most partitioning programs errors):

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=33964

And with some tweaks you can even install Windows 9x on a logical volume. (no don't do it)

The point as I see it is:

1. the most basic "standard" is having a SINGLE primary partition (formatted with a filesystem DOS 7.x recognizes, i.e. FAT16 or FAT32)
   
2. the next "standard" is having a SINGLE primary partition and an Extended partition with how many logical volumes (within the limit below) you want/need in it, optionally having other two Primaries formatted with filesystems NOT recognized by DOS 7.x/Win9x/Me
   

ANYTHING different from the above is NON-standard, and although it may cause NO problems whatsoever in all the life of that hard disk/win 9x install, I don't see the utility of doing something non-standard UNLESS you actually *need* some features that the "standard" does NOT allow.

Just for the record, any Windows NT based system AND any Linux based systems are designed to be installed on Logical Volumes inside extended.

I personally have been partitioning along standard #2 (standard #1 is simply inadequate) on "production machines" since more than 15 years, and had no problems whatsoever.

Of course if the scope is to experiment, you are very welcome to try anything, though if this is the scope, "two primaries" is so common that it cannot be classified in the "new test" section.

Not that I'd do this, but it was pretty neat to realize that, using these techniques, you can take a 1TB drive and break it up into 1,000 different 1GB partitions/volumes!

Of which roughly 976 NOT accessible with a drive letter...

Norton 360?

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=140499

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=23902

jaclaz

[rloew]

rloew,

I like the structured progression of your description. Together with Mijzelf's explanation, it made the whole issue so much easier to understand. Thank you.

O.K., so I won't resize the existing partition, but rather create an extended one and then link it to a logical partition. Would you recommend RFDISK for this, or should I stick with FDISK?

And I'll go with the 31214x15x63 arrangement. Time to use the utility dencorso recommended way back, to make a copy of the BIOS settings.

--JorgeA

You can use either.

FDISK will only allow one Primary Partition. RFDISK does not have this limit.

RFDISK has the option to convert a Logical Partition into a Primary Partition non-destructively, so you have the option to change it later.

Disk Drive Overlays like my BOOTMAN are designed not to cause problems when moving Hard Drives between different Computers. It was mainly some of the Overlays from the Disk Drive Manufacturers that caused serious problems.

@Jaclaz

The Multi-Boot Profile Option in RFDISK can support access to those 976 Partitions, 24 at a time. I would have to fix a stack overflow problem to do that many.

The Multi-Boot Profile Feature does not use an Overlay.

[JorgeA]

For the record, having two primaries is mostly pointless, as a logical volume inside extended is also safer (from dumb virus or most partitioning programs errors):

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=33964

jaclaz,

That was interesting. I'm open to doing it either way.

Whether I go with two primary partitions, or one primary + one extended partition -- will either choice present a problem to DOS? Sometimes I find that I have to use a DOS floppy, to boot or just to copy files, so I'd like to use the choice that won't confuse DOS. Now if they are equally confusing to DOS, or neither one is a problem, then I'll have to decide based on some other factor.

The point as I see it is:

1. the most basic "standard" is having a SINGLE primary partition (formatted with a filesystem DOS 7.x recognizes, i.e. FAT16 or FAT32)
   
2. the next "standard" is having a SINGLE primary partition and an Extended partition with how many logical volumes (within the limit below) you want/need in it, optionally having other two Primaries formatted with filesystems NOT recognized by DOS 7.x/Win9x/Me
   

ANYTHING different from the above is NON-standard, and although it may cause NO problems whatsoever in all the life of that hard disk/win 9x install, I don't see the utility of doing something non-standard UNLESS you actually *need* some features that the "standard" does NOT allow.

dencorso believes that the two alternatives are fairly equivalent, unless I want to multiboot, in which case two primary partitions would allow me that flexibility.

Of course if the scope is to experiment, you are very welcome to try anything, though if this is the scope, "two primaries" is so common that it cannot be classified in the "new test" section.

Yeah, at this point I *am* learning and experimenting. Considering where I was when I started, setting up two primary partitions (or even one primary and one extended) definitely counts as "experimenting" for me!

Not that I'd do this, but it was pretty neat to realize that, using these techniques, you can take a 1TB drive and break it up into 1,000 different 1GB partitions/volumes!

Of which roughly 976 NOT accessible with a drive letter...

Oh yeah, there IS that little detail, isn't there. But you know what I mean -- I'm discovering all sorts of neat stuff here.

Anyway, I think I read somewhere that it's possible to assign drives beyond Z: somehow. Did I misread that, or was that just plain wrong?

Norton 360?

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=140499

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=23902

jaclaz

Well, what can I say. When PCs first came out, I was really into them. Really enjoyed tinkering with MS-DOS and seeing what one could do with it. When GUIs started appearing (Apple, Windows 1.0), I disdained them: my attitude was that it "dumbed down" the computing experience. I much preferred text-based computing to using hieroglyphics.

But then Windows 3.1 took over the world, and I had to keep pace or lose most of my customers, who wanted to send and receive projects via e-mail and were using newer word processing applications. (WordStar, R.I.P.) But tinkering with the workings of the computer seemed to become that much harder because of the added layer from the GUI. For 15-20 years, I approached the computer as a sort of "black box" that did magic tricks; I wasn't interested in how it worked anymore. I used to say that "the degree of complexity had exceeded my level of interest."

It's really been only in the last 18 months that my "computing fever" has come back, ever since my Win98 tower got sick and I had to rush out and get a new PC. Had to learn a lot about what's happened since Windows 98, but also I was curious to find out just what the heck happened to the old computer. (My leading theory now is that it simply needed some serious dusting inside. Funny -- if I'd been diligent about cleaning the inside of the case all along, I'd probably still be chugging along on my Win98.)

To make an already long story short, as I became dimly aware of the nasty stuff that a computer could catch while on the Internet, back around 2002-2003 I started to look for antivirus software. While at the store I noticed Norton Internet Security on the shelf. Peter Norton's book on MS-DOS was one of my "bibles" way back when, so I had good associations with that name, and I bought NIS. I also bought Norton SystemWorks at the same time, and for the same reason.

So when the Win98 got sick and I had to buy a new PC, I was still in the "computer as black box" stage, and the first thing I did was to look for the current versions of NIS/NSW. Norton 360 was the sort of "click and forget," all-in-one solution that I was looking for.

That's the reason why I'm on N360. Today I realize that there are a lot of alternatives, some of them possibly better, but I do see that NIS keeps getting high marks for effectivenesss in many places, so I haven't made the decision to switch.

--JorgeA

Edited June 26, 2010 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

rloew,

I like the flexibility that you describe for RFDISK. Based on what you know about the level of expertise I have shown in this thread, do you think that I could probably use it to set up the extended+logical partition without messing up royally?

--JorgeA

[rloew]

rloew,

I like the flexibility that you describe for RFDISK. Based on what you know about the level of expertise I have shown in this thread, do you think that I could probably use it to set up the extended+logical partition without messing up royally?

--JorgeA

The Program is not the easiest to use. It is intended for Power users and has no GUI.

Read the MANUAL.TXT File in the Demo to get an idea of it's complexity.

You can run the Demo on your existing Hard Drive without any risk by using the Debug Option.

I am currently finishing up a Major Upgrade that will support Hard Drives larger than 2TiB.

Edited June 27, 2010 by rloew