Re: Kt3-Ultra2 problems with 180GB drive

"Uri" <uric+@mindspring.com> wrote in message
news:...
| Maybe someone here has experience with a similar problem:
| I have a KT3-Ultra2 Rev 1 with Bios 5.7 and am using it with a WD 180GB
| IDE drive. For some reason, no utility under Win 2000, or Linux (I
| have dual boot) would like to format any partition beyond the point of
| 160GB... I am using MS utilities Linux utilities and Partition Magic
| 8... All I can do is create a new partition beyond 160GB but I can not
| format it, nor expand the lower partition beyond 160GB (after removing
| the unformattable partition from the last 20GB).. Norton Utilities 2003
| would not access that partition, either. As the problem exists in Win
| 2000, Linux, Caldera Dos (Partition Magic and Norton utilities under DOS
| mode) I suspect either HW limitations of the south bridge (8235) or
| the bios.
| I do have a couple of Promise ATA100 cards but will use them only as a
| last resort, as these cards come with another set of issues.
| Any advise?
| Uri
|
Any hard disk larger than 128 GB needs BIOS support. That is where all the
numbers for LBA addressing reach their maximum. Maxtor was the first to
release a low cost drive larger than 128 GB- it was 160 GB. I suggest that
your BIOS has special support for the Maxtor 160 GB drives, but cannot
handle larger.

2 suggestions:
1> look for a BIOS upgrade which specifically enables very large drives.
(extended LBA addressing).
2> go to the WD site and look for a utility which will enable your drive on
machines which cannot natively do so. Even then, standard utilities may not
be able to access it. Use only whatever WD have.

HTH
John