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Thread ID: 18798	2002-05-02 10:07:00	Hard Drive woes	Guest (0)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
46820	2002-05-02 10:07:00	Recently I tried to switch my 6Gb HDD with a 20Gb drive from another (older) machine. Although the drive was recognized by the bios, and works in the older machine (P133 Win98SE), I can't get Windows ME to recognize it on the newer machine (Celeron 466). I tried it both as slave to the 6Gb and as sole master drive, but it just wouldn't show up in the 'My Computer' box. My brother thought it might be the 8Gb limit problem, but it turns out not to be ... ME didn't register anything at all. Does anyone know what the problem might be? Joe Davies	Guest (0)
46821	2002-05-02 13:01:00	What size does the Bios report the drive to be or does it not show at all? The Bios is the first place to look as if it not showing correctly there then it will not work in Windows. CJ	Guest (0)
46822	2002-05-02 22:51:00	Thanks for responding ... The bios shows a 20Gb drive as it should do. Hope this helps. Joe Davies	Guest (0)
46823	2002-05-03 03:49:00	It's a BIOS problem. There are two approaches. If you don't want the information, just fdisk and format the disk. That will make it match the BIOS description it has 'autoidentified'. If you want to keep the information on the disk you will have to go back to the older machine, and note down the exact settings it has in CMOSD for the drive. (Cyls, Heads, Sector size ..). Then enter the same settings in a 'User specified' type in the new machine's setup. What happened? A long time ago multi GB drives were not dreamed of. A few MB was very expensive. Memory was expensive, so things were kept as compact as possible. The description of a disk allowed 1024 cylinders. There was probably 19 sectors per track. A big drive might have had 16 heads. Now the BIOS has to cope with huge disks. The Cyls/heads/sectors information on the disk drive label is probably a lie anyway. The internal arrangement is usually quite different, and it is hidden by the internal IDE controller. So the BIOS identifies a disk, and gets a number from the drive which is the size. The BIOS selects 3 numbers so that CxHxS (x sectorsize[=512]) results in a number somewhere close. That set of numbers is saved in the CMOS RAM. It is arbitrary, but it works. It is usually invisible to the user. Unfortunately, there are a number of companies writing BIOS code. They are independent. A disk is formatted according to the information in the BIOS. Formatting puts sector numbers in each sector. If the disk is now put on another computer, with a different description, you get one small problem. It don't work.	Guest (0)
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