Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations gkittelson on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
New drive
- Thread starter timlowe
- Start date
In order for us to help you, we would need information on your system, mainly the motherboard information.
It could be that your bios cannot handle a hard drive that size.
You could use overlay software but i dont reccommend it as it always causes problems down the road.
The other, best option, if the bios wont accept this hard drive properly would be to use an ultra pci controller. This controller fits in a pci slot and allows you to install larger hard drives as it has its own bios in it that can see the larger hard drive.
Still, we would need your motherboard info to see if your current bios can handle that hard drive, but if not then the pci ultra controller card would be the way to go, and they are not expensive.
Good advice + great people = tek-tips
It could be that your bios cannot handle a hard drive that size.
You could use overlay software but i dont reccommend it as it always causes problems down the road.
The other, best option, if the bios wont accept this hard drive properly would be to use an ultra pci controller. This controller fits in a pci slot and allows you to install larger hard drives as it has its own bios in it that can see the larger hard drive.
Still, we would need your motherboard info to see if your current bios can handle that hard drive, but if not then the pci ultra controller card would be the way to go, and they are not expensive.
Good advice + great people = tek-tips
- Thread starter
- #3
Hi, i dont beleive it is a motherboard or bios problem, when the computer boots, it shows the hard disk as being 80gbs. but when i put in the gateway system restore cd and it trys to format the new drive, it only shows it as being 12Gb.
Windows 98SE
Intel (Fedora) motherboard Pentium III - 667 MHz [Part #2508226]
Thanks,
Tim
Windows 98SE
Intel (Fedora) motherboard Pentium III - 667 MHz [Part #2508226]
Thanks,
Tim
Well, now its a different story. You didnt state that the bios sees the h drive correctly. In fact, it appeared otherwise to the average reader, thats me.
You are stuck with a gateway system restore cd that likely wants to use the old hard drive which was likely 12 gigs and thats likely what the problem is. I dont know for sure but maybe you could let it install that way and then fix it later. Im not sure on that point but i have read that some of the system recovery cds read code from the hard drive that was originally installed in the system. Or it reads code in the bios, but either way i do believe thats why it wants to format the drive as 12 gigs.
In the end, if you cant do it a better way, perhaps you could use a small hard drive for your c drive and os and then install your 80 gig drive as a slave or master on the secondary channel.
Good advice + great people = tek-tips
You are stuck with a gateway system restore cd that likely wants to use the old hard drive which was likely 12 gigs and thats likely what the problem is. I dont know for sure but maybe you could let it install that way and then fix it later. Im not sure on that point but i have read that some of the system recovery cds read code from the hard drive that was originally installed in the system. Or it reads code in the bios, but either way i do believe thats why it wants to format the drive as 12 gigs.
In the end, if you cant do it a better way, perhaps you could use a small hard drive for your c drive and os and then install your 80 gig drive as a slave or master on the secondary channel.
Good advice + great people = tek-tips
- Thread starter
- #5
Hi garebo.. sorry for the confusion in the earlier email.. I just found a work around. I used the "ultimate boot CD" not sure if you are familiar with that. It has a maxtor hard drive utility on it which recognizes the 80GB and let me format it. After that i put the system restore cd back in, it asked if I wanted to format and install or just install.. so i chose "Just install" and im now looking at a 80 GB harddrive. Thanks for the info and help..
Tim
Tim
no problem, glad you got it working right!
For further reading on what i was talking about you can go here, perhaps 3/4 of the way down the page, or you could just do a search for gateway:
Very interesting reading.
Good advice + great people = tek-tips
For further reading on what i was talking about you can go here, perhaps 3/4 of the way down the page, or you could just do a search for gateway:
Very interesting reading.
Good advice + great people = tek-tips
- Status
Similar threads
- Locked
- Question