120gb + 20gb on IBM PII

[porabai]

Hello All,

I have IBM PII with 10gb hard drive. I brought a 120gb hard drive and tried to put on my pc by removing the old 10gb harddrive inorder to use it. but i couldnt format as my motherboard doesnt support and i was told to use controller card to format and use it. I even called the IBM tech guys and they said if i format the hard drive in lba mode and they said the pc will support any hard drive upto l20gb. As i am new in this i didnt get what is lba mode. Any suggestions/ideas as how i can go format the hard drive in lba mode.

your help will be truly appreciated.

thanks
porabai

 

[micker377]

LBA means Large Block Address. It is just one of the ways to format for full size. What OS are you planning to use? Get a boot disk for that OS. Fdisk and format. You will be asked "This hard drive is over xxx. Do you want to use large ..." something or other. I've done so many, I quit reading the exact message. Just say "yes", and it will partition the drive. Reboot, and at the a:\prompt type "Format c:\s". The first thing to check is the BIOS setup to see if the bios "see's" the drive. Post back if the bios does not see the drive.

 

[porabai]

sorry i forgot to mention the o/s its win xp. I have the win xp cd which boots from cd.

 

[rvnguy]

porabai,

Is your 120gb drive new? and did it come with a software CD?
Check your cable (not the four pin power) that is attached to the HD. It should have an additional connector about in the middle. If not try to get an IDE data cable (about $3.00USD) you can follow the drive instructions and make sure to set(jumpers) on the new drive to "slave" and add/attach it to the middle data connector add power, leave the original HD connected at the end connector and boot the computer. Load & run the drive mfg software. select setup new drive; select the new drive and that it will be a new boot drive and you will/might be prompted to select the format type (as you are running XP I would select NTFS) and the software will format the drive and clone your current small drive to the new drive
When complete, you will be directed to shut down, re-jumper the new drive to master and connect it to the end (last) data connector on the cable. Remove the old drive and boot up. You should now have your same system install on your new larger drive.

If you did not get the software with the drive you can obtain this at the drive mfg site as a download.

Hope this helps

rvnguy

"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[rclarke250]

LBA mode can be set in bios.

 

[porabai]

its new hard drive and i have got the software cd along with it. i will follow the instructions and update u on this.

 

[rvnguy]

porabai,

Thanks for posting back.

If you find that this method restricts the format capacity you have a few options.

You can partition the drive into multiple volumes at the max size allowable. This will generate a C:, D: and so forth on this drive.

You can collect the motherboard mfg. model # and bios provider, and bios version and post back for assistance in locating a BIOS update.

Good Luck

rvnguy



"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[porabai]

rvnguy!
thanks for the tip.
I had called the IBM tech support and they said there are no more updates for the bios afte 2001 or so. I already had that update and they also said that motherboard will support any harddrive upto 127gb. mine is 120 gb and as u said i will partition into multiple say 2x60gb or so to make it workable. i will update you on this.