New HD questions (& bios probs)

unkel

Originally posted by WizZard
Disclaimer: Nothing I have said may be taken as being true, nor can I be held responsible if your computer/hi-fi/microwave stops working as a result of said speech

gobby would have come after ya

WizZard

Hehe, not any more. I'm disclaimed!!!!

unkel

Indeed

gobby

ahh jesus lads. now ive no idea what to do!

ill google for a bit, see what i can dig up.

davidclayton

ok, i'm gonna blow all yall out of the water.
cuz i've had this problem, like 5 times in the last year...
you godda go old skool!:eek:

the ONLY way to format that bad-boy in FAT32 [that i know] is to do it in WIN 98!
i can give you a lend of a 6giger, install win 98, then bung in the samsung, format it to fat... there you go! then bung it into your WIN XP pc.

text me and i'll call over to the boglands tonight and help ya!



dave

gobby

tis alright man. partition magic seems able to do it. nice one all the same though

Virus_Inc

The drive maybe showing up as only 128Gb if you only have an ATA100 controller... to use the full capacity of a 160 you'll need ATA133.... something to check...

Virus_Inc

Also, why on earth would you want to stick with FAT32? The only time FAT is any fast than NTFS is with drives that are smaller than 500Mb... NTFS is much good... if you're worried about having to format the old drive fear not. All NT based windows come with a comand line app called convert.exe which converts partitions to NTFS on the fly and while retaining all the exiting data on the partition... have done it many times before and with no hassles....

MarkR

Also have a look at this .

This is for a similar problem. What make is your motherboard?

gobby

The drive maybe showing up as only 128Gb if you only have an ATA100 controller... to use the full capacity of a 160 you'll need ATA133.... something to check...

my board supports ata133.

What make is your motherboard?

its an msi 645e max2.

got a copy of sp1. gonna try installing win xp to the new drive, install sp1 and see what happens.

unkel

Originally posted by gobby
got a copy of sp1. gonna try installing win xp to the new drive, install sp1 and see what happens.

Copy being the operative word

Keep us posted gobby

WizZard

And the world waits with bated breath...

Creamy Goodness

to have hard drives bigger than 129gb you need WINXP SP1

gobby

okay, so heres the latest...

what i was gonna do was install xp onto the new drive (or whats available of it) and that way if the sp didnt work my old drive would still be intact.

well that was the plan anyways...

couldnt get any os loaded onto the new drive. tried win 98 with no joy and then win 2k pro also with no joy.

so basically at this stage i was getting fierce pi$$ed off. so i backed up my most important files (mp3's etc) and just went ahead and tried to install the sp on my old drive.

didnt work. it gave me an error saying that my cd key was invalid (or something like that) and a load of stuff about how microsoft dont condone piracy. it also gave a number to call if you suspect that you were sold illegal software.

so at this stage i was getting a little worried. rebooted the machine and it seems fine. its been ticking over for about 2 hours now no probs. still i am worried that in a couple of days its just gonna sieze on me. would be just the sort of thing that microsoft would do. let you think you got off the hook then kerblamo! your machine explodes.

but the biggest problem here is that i now need an alternative solution to the problem. partition magic let me use the whole disk as long as it was partitioned so i might leave it like that. still, would like to have it all as one...

just thinking, mayby a re-install of xp would be a good idea. might overwrite any time bombs left on the drive!

unkel

Originally posted by gobby
didnt work. it gave me an error saying that my cd key was invalid (or something like that) and a load of stuff about how microsoft dont condone piracy. it also gave a number to call if you suspect that you were sold illegal software.

Don't say I didn't.....

Get a legit OS m8

gobby

Get a legit OS m8

mmmm. naahhh... has to be another way.

think my data will be okay though. was reading this. so thats a big relief. was also reading that some chipset manufactures are releasing patches to solve the problem. yet to find anything for mine though.

also read that undoubtedly there will be cracked copies of sp1 going around. hehe... damn, its just crazy, the piracy that goes on. they bring out new security measures, a month later the cracks/patches appear. seriously, there must be people working around the clock, cracking software.

ive also read that companies such as microsoft take piracy into account when they are setting the prices for their products. its no wonder they are going mad trying to crack down on it. they wont change the price but if its harder to copy then more people will buy and the profits go through the roof. sly oul dogs.

anyways, im just happy now that i know that my machine wont spontaniously combust...

Dman_15

I had the same problem with a 180gig ibm deskstar.
it can be fixed. Go here and download this patch and it should work fine.
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/big_drive_enabler.htm

gobby

are you sure that will work for a samsung drive, Dman_15?

oh, and the crack for sp1 is out appartantly

Dman_15

just updates the registry
worked for my ibm

gobby

hmmm... says on the maxtor site that you need to have sp1 installed.

Dman_15

go here http://www.crackway.com/cracks/pages/W/14.shtml , get the xp cd key change thingy, it solves the invalid cd key error you were getting, download sp1 from microsoft and use the maxtor fix. should work then.

Oriel

For a start, convert to NTFS.
There's a simple DOS command for converting the hard drive from Fat32 to NTFS, but it's not backward compatible. Once you've done that, your current drive will be able to copy all its files over to the new one. When you're there, reformat the old drive to whatever you want.

Problem solved.

/edit: try this
Main thing is - whatever it takes, back up all the data you want to keep (which I think you've done anyway, but thought I say it again).

unkel

Originally posted by Dman_15
go here http://www.crackway.com/cracks/pages/W/14.shtml , get the xp cd key change thingy, it solves the invalid cd key error you were getting, download sp1 from microsoft and use the maxtor fix. should work then.

Getting the feeling we won't be seeing you for a while Dman_15

zAbbo

If you have to change the cd key(it is legitimate you know), start > help > search for "activation"

And activate by phone, its something like "oosbe/a/" or something.

gobby

If you have to change the cd key(it is legitimate you know), start > help > search for "activation"

yup. did just that. used a method & key i found on a warez site.

now when i try to boot it wont and just gives me an error message saying 'NTLDR is missing'. damn. im sick of this. almost wish i paid for a legit copy. now i have another problem and no idea how to fix it.

guess theres a moral to all this...

gobby

anybody have any idea what that error message is or how to fix it?

i wonder would it have anything to do with my bootloader. i have mandrake installed on the drive too. dont even get to the loader now. just get that error after post. the bootloader is installed on the MBR.

gobby

okay, got everything sorted. got sp1 installed and the drive is now recognised.

again, thanks to everyone for their help. tis appreciated