Posted: 12/3/2006 9:19:15 AM EDT
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After many hours searching the net, I've decided to ask to some help. Recently, I had to reinstall Windows XP Pro on my elder, but trusty tower system. All went reletively smoothly, including the SP2 and critical updates. I still have some issues with my ATI drivers, but that being taken care of with the newest driver set and installation of .NET Framework version 2. The problem I ask for help with involves a WD 350GB HDD connected to a PCI ATA100 expansion card supplied back in the day with the WD drive. I have two HDDs connected to this card and one of them (150 GB) operates without problem. The 350 GB shows up in My Computer > Manage > Disk Management as a "Healthy Active" 128 GB drive (which it's not, but is not displayed as being formatted. Of course, this drive would have to be filled nearly to capacity with all my video archives, which I simply cannot afford to lose. Back when I originally installed this drive (years ago), I had a similar problem with XP not recognizing the full size of the drive. I simply don't recall what I had to do to fix the problem. I do recall it involved updating something in Windows and installing some other bit of software. Upon rebooting after completing all critical and SP2 updates, a screen appeared indicating a new piece of hardware had been found -- a VIA bus master IDE driver. When I check Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager, under SCSI and RAID controllers, there is the familiar [!] next to "VIA Bus Master IDE drivers". Checking properties it tells me : This device is not configured correctly. (Code 1) To reinstall the drivers for this device, click Reinstall Driver. Attempts to reinstall the driver using the automated search function "Welcome to the Hardware Update wizrd" produce no results, even allowing the search vehicle to check online and the MS Update site. At one time, I'd thought this was not an uncommon problem. I fixed it the last tiem by searching Google for what others had done, but it seems that info is no longer readily discoverd. I would, therefore, appreciate all effort to assist me in solving this problem. |
| you need to find the driver for your pci ata controller card. it came on a floppy from WD. if you can't find the floppy you can download it from WD... Or probably from promise you will have to get the model number off the card which might require opening the case |
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I have the diskette and attempted to use it. There is a error message which says the software is not suitable for installation on an XP operating system and does not allow contiunation. As mentioned previously, there is also another HDD connected to the same EIDE cable which functions without problem. It's an interesting problem. |
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I don't know if this applies to you or not. www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1115/ Rest of the site www.winguides.com/registry/tweaks.php/WindowsXP/ Use it own risk. Back up your registry. Good luck ZM |
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It seems those links are for Win2000 systems, but I did root around a little in the MS Knowledge Base. There is another article similar to that one for XP in which it indicates versions of XP from SP1 forward are 48-bit LBA enabled. The article does, however, go on to note that the system must also be running a 48-bit LBA enabled BIOS. I seem to recall having to update the BIOS last time. Now, where to find an updated BIOS for an ABIT KT7A-RAID motherboard.... Guess I'm back to Google. |
sorry i missed that part  directly from WD directly to MIcrosOft ZekeMenuar beat me to it though. this is just the official links 
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While searching about for a more current BIOS for my motherboard, I had time for further contemplation of that approach. It occurred to me that the BIOS is stored on the motherboard and would not have been effected by a reinstall of the OS. Thus, the BIOS update I did back in the day to enable large disk recognition is still there. Additional Google searching revealed a few mentions that the more recent version of SP2 actualy turns off large block addressing. I don't know whether to believe that (supposedly it's a security update), but don't know how to search the registry to determine if it's on or off in SP2. The standard HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters\ line doesn't show an "EnableBigLba" value. Any suggestions? |
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if its on a seperate controller board your bios update will have no affect either way since the pci controller is reading the data.. have your tried another 80 wire cable?? was your machine running SP2 before when it was working? you might run out and buy a external usb exclosure and hook the drive up, the pci card could have gone bad. that exclosure would help trouble shoot. |
Good suggestion. I'll see if I've another cable, but there is a 150 GB HDD also on the same cable which function normally.
Yes
Well, I could move the drive to a friend's computer, to the same end. That, I may just have to do to recover the many, many GBs of data. If the card had gone bad, I shouldn't have access to the other drive's contents, should I? |
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Update: I've since reformatted the HDD and lost over 300GB of data. The result was the drive only registered as being 128GB. I deleted the partition and rebooted, on the off chance this would recognize the full drive size; it didn't. I've moved the drive to an on-motherboard IDE port. No effect. I moved the drive to it's own IDE cable, fvirst on the motherboard, then on the expansion card. No luck in either case (still only sees it as 128GB). I've tried different jumper settings, including no jumper (this is for WD HDDs when they are alone on an IDE cable). I've searched for Windows updates. No effect. I've removed the drive competely from my computer and installed it into a friend's system. He reformatted the drive through his system and recognized the full 320GB, wrote files to it, everything working perfectly. Removed the drive from his computer and placed it back in mine.... You guessed it, only recognized it as 128GB and says it needs to be formatted. This eliminates the possibility the drive is bad. All the while, the 150 GB WD HDD works fine, which eliminates the possiblity the expansion card was needed but went bad. I'm stupified. I have no idea what the problem is or what to try next. I obviously need the help of someone with more skill than I. |
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It's a full ATX tower I built from scratch many years ago. It worked perfectly for years until a power outtage screwed up the operating system. The motherboard is an ABit KT-7A RAID (in non-RAID configuration -- gains the use of the other two IDE ports) and the CPU is an AMD Athlon 1.2GHz. incidentally, the VIA Busmaster problem resolved itself at some point during the update process. Suddenly, it stopped being a "?". |
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a $60 dollar APC would have saved you a headache. i have APC on all my computers. I have a APC surge protector on my ibm laptop. call me paranoid i guess this is a good lesson learned... backup your data to multiple places no one is responsible for YOUR data but YOU |
| Something I noticed this morning, looking at the recalcitrant HDD in Western Digital's Data Lifeguard tools. It shows up as being FAT16 instead of NTFS (as it was formatted on my buddy's system). I wonder how one ges about correcting that, as there seeds to be no notes discussing this procedure. |
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Watcher, Sounds like your MB is relativity new considering the fact that is has on board RAID, even if a couple years older. This sounds more like a limitation of the interface card you have in the box. Is there a reason you are using the drive interface card in the first place? Recable the 300 gig drive directly to the MB and reboot the computer. Open the BIOS and see if the MB picks up the drive. If so, reboot again and open up disk manager in XP and verify the drive size again. Send me an e-mail, I will help you get it worked out. |
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I don't make a habit of screwing with hardware anymore but I'll offer this... 1) Make sure your BIOS is properly patched for 48-bit LBA support. 2) Make sure your BIOS is properly enabled for 48-bit LBA support. 3) MAke sure WinXP SP2 is installed. 4) Follow the registry change instructions in the relevant Microsoft Knowledgebase articles. If a registry key doesn't exist, it needs to be created and set to the proper value. Troubleshooting tip...Never assume something is a certain way. Check and make sure. Re-applying a patch doesn't hurt anything. Hope that helps. |
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Watcher, I downloaded the manual for your Abit MB and now see that the onboard support for drives is up to 128 gigs - sorry bout that. That must be a pretty old MB. Have you gone over to VIA's website to get the drivers for that device listed under XP device manager for the interface card support? |
Via's Website: http://www.via.com.tw/en/index.jsp Be sure your hardware is operating properly first. Cruzer5 did mention that NTFS is a must and he is correct. If you do not have data on that drive anymore, I would delete the partition after the correct drivers are installed for your IDE card and created an NTFS only partition. |
Please allow me to restate that prior to the re-installation of XP, all of these components were installed and operating properly with full drive size available. I've long since patched the motherboard BIOS to be LBA capable (BIOS 7N) and there simply is no BIOS setting that turns on/off LBA. There are two of us on this end trying to figure out the problem. We have, of course, removed the drive from the expansion card, as stated above, and connected it directly to the motherboard to determine if the problem is card related. It is not. This is further substantiated by the fact that there is another (150GB) drive on that card which is working properly. The card exists because I needed more IDE slots than were available on the motherboard. In fact, as we speak, the drive is still directly connected to the motherboard. When placed in another computer and formatted, the drive shows its full size and operates perfectly. When the drive is unplugged from the other computer and reinstalled back into my system, it registers as unreadable and in need of formatting. Thus : It is not a drive problem, It is not an expansion card problem, It is not a BIOS problem, It is not an LBA problem. The only thing that could possibly remain is some problem within Windows XP Pro SP2. All updates are installed. The drive has been formatted multiple times in NTFS. There simply isn't anything left, but yet the drive still won't register its full capacity. After New Year's, I had planned to add yet another (500GB) drive, but won't do so until I'm certain this problem is resolved. There just isn't anything left I know how to check. |
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so when you go to disk management what size does it see the drive @? have you tried low level  formatting the hd then hookit up your your controller card. THEN format it using disk managment ? dban is one you can use. here is WD's tool have you installed the latest 4 in 1 driver... not the hyperion drive |
Disk Management currently reads the drive as 128.00GB NTFS Data Lifeguard Tools reads the HDD as 137.4GB NTFS I have installed the legacy drivers with no effect. I ran the Western Digital drive diagnostic program in DOS which reported no drive errors. POST, incidentally, recognizes the drive as 320GB. I have no idea what "low formatting" is. |