Formatted 160GB on UDMA/100 question

[BRAINIAC88]

Hey all,

I recently formatted two 160GB maxtors using a Promise U133 card, but
now I connected the drives directly to the UDMA/100 ports on this
intel P4 board. The OS (winxp) sees all 153GB (formatted size), and
read/writes OK. I have only used < 10GB of it. So i tried fdisking
one of them, and I cant get see all 160Gb anymore, only 128GB. Again,
i had to FDISK using the Promise U133 card. I am using the new
version of FDISK which works beyond 64GB.

Why can the system see the whole 152GB formatted capacity, but cant
FDISK it to >128GB ?

Are there any issues if I continue using the UDMA/100 ports (which
currently do not have the 48-bit LBA support)? It is working fine
now... I just hope nothing weird is going on with my data~!

[Rod Speed]

BRAINIAC88 <brain...@email.com> wrote in message
news:3db83f04.02020...@posting.google.com...

> I recently formatted two 160GB maxtors using a Promise U133 card,
> but now I connected the drives directly to the UDMA/100 ports on this
> intel P4 board. The OS (winxp) sees all 153GB (formatted size), and
> read/writes OK. I have only used < 10GB of it. So i tried fdisking
> one of them, and I cant get see all 160Gb anymore, only 128GB.
> Again, i had to FDISK using the Promise U133 card. I am using
> the new version of FDISK which works beyond 64GB.

> Why can the system see the whole 152GB formatted
> capacity, but cant FDISK it to >128GB ?

Basically because the motherboard bios cant handle over 128GB.

The Promise card can.

> Are there any issues if I continue using the UDMA/100 ports
> (which currently do not have the 48-bit LBA support)? It is working
> fine now... I just hope nothing weird is going on with my data~!

It could well do when you use over 128GB.

[Sterling Windmill]

It has nothing to do with your motherboard BIOS. FDISK has a 128MB
limitation.

"BRAINIAC88" <brain...@email.com> wrote in message
news:3db83f04.02020...@posting.google.com...

[Mr Garfield]

1) To access any capacity above 137 GB (128GB as reported by
Microsoft) ATA drive you have to use the 48-bit LBA command set.

Most motherboards do not yet support the 48-bit LBA command set.
(one that does is the Compaq EVO P4 systems)
The Promise 133 controller does support 48-bit LBA commands.

When you use FDISK under DOS, it uses the BIOS INT 13 calls
to access the drive and if you have the latest FDISK (that came with
Win ME), you can fdisk and format a 160GB if you use a BIOS or a
controller card that supports 48-bit commands.

So when you had the drive to the Promise controller you used the
BIOS INT 13 extentions that are on the controller card that did
support the new command set.

When you had the drive on the internal P4 chipset controller you were
using the system BIOS that (appears) to not support the new command
set.

2) I have no idea why your Win XP sees the entire 153 GB... Mine
does not, but what they heck maybe you got a version with 48-bit
stuff enabled...

or MAYBE not !!!!, and its just reading the capacity
out of the partition table and when it goes to access that 138 GB
that wraps around to the first 1GB, you may see problems.

I personally would NOT use a 160GB drive past 137GB unless
two things were present:

1) The drive was connected to a controller that used 48-bit commands
2) I had 48-bit LBA drivers loaded

As you found out one way to do that is use a Promise card and the
promise drivers.

Garfield

[Mr Garfield]

>It has nothing to do with your motherboard BIOS. FDISK has a 128MB
>limitation.

I'll assume you mean 128GB. And I have a different experiance.

When using FDISK and Format from Windows ME and a system with a 48-bit
LBA BIOS, I can format a 160GB to its full capacity.

BTW: 128GB is advertised by the disk drive folks as 137 GB
(its a difference between 1GB = 1,000,000,000 vs 1024*1024*1024)

Garfield