My BIOS supports large drives and I have 2 Maxtor 250 GB drives working fine. I am trying to add a Seagate ST3250623A drive (250GB PATA). I tried it in another computer that supports large drives with the same results. Is something wrong with the drive? My mobo is ASUS P4P800 Deluxe w/ 1019 BIOS.
2006-09-24 17:01:21 · 2 answers · asked by fuzgoat 2 in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
The label on the drive says ST3250623A and this model is also returned by the BIOS.
2006-09-24 17:58:30 · update #1
The BIOS shows the size as 127.99 GB. It is not formatted or partitioned. All large drives are PATA drives. XP disk manager shows the size as 128 GB unpartitioned. This is a brand new drive, fresh from the box this morning.
2006-09-24 18:40:42 · update #2
Also all drives are connected to the MB direction (VIA chipset on this board). The BIOS is the latest version. The other machine has an older ASUS P2B board that doesn't show the size in the older BIOS, but still shows 128 GB in XP disk manager. I've also tried the drive in a Maxtor OneTouch external USB enclosure that normally has a Maxtor MaxLine Plus II 250 GB drive in it, but it also reports 128 GB in XP disk manager with the Seagate drive.
2006-09-24 18:43:27 · update #3
Even more info: This mobo has a VIA VT6410 IDE RAID controller (as reported by device manager). I'm not running any disks in RAID mode. The VIA driver makes these look like SCSI drives to XP. I have my CD drives attached to the Intel 8280 ATA controller and may try attaching the drive via this connection to see if it makes any difference.
2006-09-24 18:48:36 · update #4
Ok, the problem has been solved with some help from Seagate technical support (after a mere 23 minutes on hold). The drive was reporting this smaller size itself. I had to use the Seagate Disk Wizard (tm) software to reset the size to the full 250 MB. This software only worked when the drive was connected to the Intel-based ATA ports of my motherboard. The tech said that someone probably used the drive in an older computer that couldn't support the full size, thus putting the lower limit in place. He said they are "definitely" not shipped that way and that CompUSA probably re-packaged it and put it back on the shelf. How nice. The good news is my drive is now working at full capacity and I still have a 5 year warranty.
2006-09-25 15:40:11 · update #5
In searching through google to find some answers for you, you don't seem to be the only person with this issue. My first question would be, does the BIOS on boot up show the drive correctly? If it's not showing, have you gone into the BIOS to have the drive auto detected? Also, is this set to CS, Master or Slave? How is this drive partitioned? Do you have the latest BIOS version for your motherboard? The other two 250GB drives, are they ATA or SATA and are they running from the board or from a controller card? What about the one in question? Are you formatting these with FAT32 or NTFS? The other computer you tried to install it to, was it also an ASUS board? In drive management, does it show a 128 partition with the rest of the drive space unallocated?
The source links below may help answer your question. Good luck.
2006-09-24 18:22:04 · answer #1 · answered by ? 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I'd assume there's something wrong with the drive itself if it does it in both computers. Does the label on the hard drive show the model number you expect it to be?
2006-09-24 17:09:35 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋