Hard drive size

[pcarl]

How do I detrmine what size hard drive my system will operate? I am not sure what BIOS I have installed on machine, I can not remeber the name at the moment.

[capybara]

max hdd size is determined by the OS.
for ex, I THINK win 95 was limited
to 8 gig per partition, win98 to 32 gig
per partition. all that means is you have to partition a hdd larger than that into
several smaller "virtual" drives.

[daverme]

That's a good question! The BIOS won't tell you nor does any of my mobo doc.

How old is the mobo? If it is old enough, then the BIOS may, indeed, impose limitations on the max drive size. The major "barriers" were 504MB, 2GB and 8.4GB. Depending on the specific BIOS, there were also other less well known barriers as well. These all disappeared with advances in BIOS technology and with corresponding OS support. If the mobo was built after about 1998, then I believe the BIOS limit is 128GB.

Depending on the OS and file system (FAT, FAT32, etc.) there may also be a FILE SIZE limit. DOS still uses FAT, which has a file and partition limit of 2GB.

There are threads on SysOpt that have more info and there are other Web sites, as well. Some searches my be fruitful.

[Nighthawk]

Capybara: He is asking about the BIOS limitations, not the FAT limitations.

BIOSes can only see a limited number of cylinders, heads, and sectors (CHS) or something like that. There have been size limitations at 2gb, 4gb, 16gb, and 32gb.

2gbs were in the 486 era.

The 4gb barrier was somewhere around the TX boards, around 1995-1996.

It makes sense that there would be an 8gb barrier, but I don't remember when it was.

16gb was around 97-98, and the LX boards could see it.

32gb was the limit for BX boards and ALi socket 7s.

Note that these are chipsets and the BIOSes that were most commonly seen on them during that time. Most of the time a simple BIOS flash will fix this problem.

[pcarl]

Thanks for your replies. Maybe this info will help. The computer in question has a 3gig drive now and I have WIN95(do not know what release. This is one of those no name machines and I bought in 1995.

[fyxxer32]

Can you expand on this a bit?I have an AZZA PT-51VH ver2.2 MoBo with a Pentium 200 on it and I want to install at least a 10 gb maybe a 20 gb,in the "standard cmos setup page " in the manual it says the bios will support 3 modes , Normal(smaller than 528 mb) LBA larger than 528 mb up to 8.4 gb, and Large ( and it doesnt say how large...I looked thru AZZA's website , nothing . I emailed their tech support . Nothing. So how do I find out how large a disk this thing will support? On the last WD 10 gb I bought it came with a floppy that I THINK would update the bios if it needed it but my other computer didnt need updated bios . Shall I just go out and get that 20 gb from my local parts house and cross my fingers? I will be running Win 98

[This message has been edited by fyxxer32 (edited 03-12-2001).]

[Nighthawk]

If you bought it in 1995, you probably have a normal limit of 8.4gb. You can get a larger drive and use the cylinder limitation jumper to get the BIOS to see it (It'll see 8.4 gb). You will need a drive overlay (EZ-BIOS is the most common that I've seen).

Fyxxer, the same applies to your computer. LBA is what most drives use for CHS translation (large is basically the same thing). Your limit is 8.4gb, but you could get something up to around 16gb and use the cyl lim jumper and drive overlay to be able to use the drive.

The WD drive that would "fix your BIOS" just is the drive overlay software. I don't know if WD uses EZ-BIOS or another, similar program.

[marc666]

ez

[Roy]

As Nighthawk indicates, WD provides the utility to let earlier systems use larger drives. The new version is Data Lifeguard, it can be downloaded from their site if you get a "bare" drive.

I suspect other manufacturers have similar solutions.