40GB reporting as 2.2GB

[486DX2]

Buddy of mine has a Compaq - I don't know what model, I didn't want to curse myself by looking at it too much. Anyway, we replaced his Quantum Fire(something)ball maybe ? We put in a nice new WD 80GB 8MB cache drive, and it runs great - WinXP Pro on it. We put the old drive in as slave (both drives are set for cable select) and it shows up as a 2.2GB drive. We did the old reformat, and that did not help. Does anyone know why it would do this ? The device manager does not show any errors, and there are no errors during boot up, nor with Scandisc

 

[lhgpoobaa]

I noticed you put the drives in as 'cable select'. That must be the problem.
Change the Jumpers and make the new one master, the old one the slave.

<b>I'm Toms Hardware Guide Official Forum Strumpet! </b>

 

[486DX2]

Thanks for the response, I'll try that, but I didn't think it would make a difference as long as the one I want as master is at the end of the cable. Thanks again, I'll try it out.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

cable select can do wierd things occasionally.
easier and better to do the master/slave thinggy.

<b>I'm Toms Hardware Guide Official Forum Strumpet! </b>

 

[Crashman]

If it's detected by BIOS as an 80GB drive, and it shows up in windows at a smaller size, it needs to be repartitioned to a larger size.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[486DX2]

I changed the jumpers, and this had no effect. Next I reformated into an NTFS, and this also had no effect. On another forum I have posted this question, someone suggested that I go to the Quantum Website and download a tool for low level formating. I am unable to find this tool, cannot seem to find support at the web site for any type of HD. Does anyone know where I can get a generic tool to do a low level format ?

 

[Toejam31]

The hard drive division of Quantum was bought by Maxtor. Go <A HREF="http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/products/index.htm" target="_new">here</A> to locate and download the disk utility you need. You can either use a regular Win9x boot disk to remove the NFTS partition (which would show up as a non-DOS partition), and then create a regular Primary DOS partition (non-active) ... or use the disk utility to remove the NTFS partition, and recreate one that is the proper size.

The disk utility can also "erase" the drive, which would be a medium level format, often called called a low level format, although that is actually a misnomer. A true low level format cannot be done by a user with a software utility on a floppy drive.

You can find information on how to use the MaxBlast Plus II utility at the <A HREF="http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php?p_prod_lvl1=33&p_prod_lvl2=~any~&p_cat_lvl1=31&p_cat_lvl2=~any~&p_search_text=&p_new_search=1&p_search_type=3" target="_new">Maxtor Knowledge Base</A>.

Quantum used to offer a partitioning software called DiskManager DiskGo! from Ontrack, but it has been replaced by DiskManager 2000 v 4.0, which is costs around $60.00. The older software had a 32GB limit, so you wouldn't want to use it unless the Quantum drive is 32GB or less. I think you can still pick it up <A HREF="http://www.cubest.com/manin.html" target="_new">here</A>, but personally, I'd rather use the new software from Maxtor, or just stick to a regular Win9x <A HREF="http://www.mirrors.org/archived_software/www.bootdisk.com/original.htm" target="_new">boot disk</A>. The boot disk would be the cleanest, and simplest method. I never have liked using overlay software for partitioning and formatting, unless it was absolutely the only viable solution for getting around a hard drive size recognition limitation with the mainboard BIOS.

Note: Once the drive has been partitioned, and all the available free space has been correctly recognized, you can format the partition/HDD from within Windows, just by right-clicking on the drive icon letter in My Computer, going to Properties, and choosing to Format. Then you can select whatever file system you prefer, Fat32 or NTFS.

Toejam31

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