Compatibility Issues??...Installing WD2500 HD

[Labeau]

Hi-
I've taken an old HP P2/450 machine and updated the OS to WinXP Pro. I've installed a WesternDigital WD2500JB(250G)harddrive and I'm experiencing issues when trying to copy files.

I've installed the Windows SP1 update as well as all of the other "updates". I know that there's an issue with older computers recognizing larger (139+) drives, but I think I've done what I was supposed to do to beat that issue.

The files I am copying are large (2 to 6 gig folders) and they are all MP3 or MP3+G files. The system runs, copies for a while and then tells me that it's unable to copy a certain file within the folder & I have to verify the path. After that message, the drive I'm copying FROM becomes unrecognizable to the computer. I have to remove the drive, power it down and reinstall(it's an External drive) before the system will recognize it. The drive I'm copying from is a WD 160Gig external via USB 2.0 (an added PCI card).

I thought I may have issues with the integrity of the files, so I removed the WD2500 from the P2 machine and placed it in a USB 2.0 Conversion box and hooked it as an external to my P4 machine....it's fine. No problems.

So, the question is...Am I asking too much from this P2 to do what i want it to do? It has very limited memory (128) but everything I've read to this point says it should work.

The WD2500 comes with a disc of "DataLifeguard Tools" that walks thru the initial installation. When I check the properties of the Wd2500, it says it has a 232 Gig capacity, so it seems that it is recognizing the full disc. But why 18 gig missing for.....

Any thoughts greatly appreciated- Thanks in advance!
Labeau

 

[jsauce]

Have you tried running chkdsk on the drive to make sure it doesn't have errors. You should verify the data on the disk isn't in a bad sector. Also about the 232GB. Its because HD manufacturers don't calculate drive sizes correctly. Technically a 1kb is 1024bytes however, they use a 1,000byte calc when advertising the drives. Its kind of false advertising but they all do it.

John D. Saucier
jsauce@magicguild.com
Certified Technician
Network Administrator

 

[Blujacket]

You will also 'lose' a bit of space after the drive is partitioned and then formatted.

 

[micker377]

Are you using Fat32 or NTFS? Fat 32 has size limits.

 

[jsauce]

The size limit for both NTFS and FAT32 are 2TB. He's not even close to that limit. FAT32 does impose a 4GB limit on single file size. Not really an issue here Even if the folders contained gigs of files unless the files themselves were over the limit it shouldn't be a problem.

John D. Saucier
jsauce@magicguild.com
Certified Technician
Network Administrator