I have had trouble for 14 months now trying to get My 120 gig maxtor 6Y120LO........THE Master is a 4DO60H3..... I put up with it for long enuff the Master drive works great .......but the 120 gig drive is only recognised as a 31.4 gig instead I have recently been in contact with maxtor time n time again trying to figure the problem out but at the end of the day they arn't really bothered there trouble sHooting guides helped partly to help Me assign a drive letter to get the hard drive at least recognised

but enuff is enuff I pain 200 pound for this drive in november 2002 and have but up with it being a puny 31 gig for long enuff does anyone know how to rectify this situation as I am at My wits end with it and want My extra 89 gig to store stuff on

hope someone out there with far superior knowledge to Mine can help Me out

ThanxS as always

DaOsT

Sounds like the mobo might have the 32GB limitation? What make of mobo do you have?

As Praetor said it could be a limitation of your motherboard - more specifically it would be a BIOS limitation. I would agree with him especially since you said it was 31.4g. There is a known bug with Award BIOS that only lets it see a volume as that size. If thats the case you would need a BIOS update.
A good technical explanation of hard drive limitations can be found at:
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm

From that page:
The 65,536 Cylinder (31.5 GiB / 33.8 GB) Barrier

This barrier is relatively recent, and along with a couple of others began showing up during the spring and summer of 1999. Although this barrier is often referred to as the 32 GB barrier similar to the one immediately above, that description is a bit of a misnomer.

This particular barrier is caused by some versions of the Award BIOS not being able to handle drives having more than 65,535 cylinders. Most hard disk parameters use 16 heads and 63 sectors, which works out to a capacity of approximately 33.8 GB or 31.5 GiB. It is our understanding that on or about June of 1999, this problem had been corrected by Award.

It could also be a FAT32 filesystem limitations since most BIOS limitations are at 2.1g, 8.4g, and 128g depending on the size of the register. What OS do you use? I know Windows 2000 will not support a FAT 32 volume larger than 32g: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q184006&
Not sure if XP has the same limitations. If that is the case you would need to make it NTFS.

http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/document.jhtml?reg=&plc=en&lc=en&cc=gb&prodId=compaqpres94003&docName=c00032343&cat=prodinfo

Praetor I honestly have no idea what mobo is in the pc.....

thats the spec of the pc points upwards to the link all I know is the following

Athlon 2.2 ghz processor
60 gig 4DO60H3 MASTER HD
120 GIG 6Y120LO SLAVE HD

I was told it could be the CLJ I believe that is clear lead jumpers well I took the pc apart place them lil things in the exact places as the maxtor website advised and it is still 31.49 gig.....

HP 200j DVD RW +R
256MB RAM

thanxs alot Xian I am reading the site now to try n cure the problem I am using windows XP Pro

if I go along the way off getting an ATA card to get 4 extra ide devices into My pc as I seriously need more HD space at the rate I am curently downloading wouldd the mobo still only recognise a 160 or 200 gig as a 31.4 gig??.......if so its pointless to do that ......or if I got external HD's of over 120 gig .....via usb would that be a cure??......they are just ideas of My own but I still would prefer to solve this problem as I think if I can get upto 180 gig its enuff for now

THANXS ALOT BOTH OF YOU I DO APPRECIATE IT

DaOsT

Did you run the MaxBlast software that came with you hard drive. Many large hard drives need Hard Disk Overlay to work with computer motherboards and BIOS that does not support those large drives and that is what the software does.

I have a 200GB Maxtor but it would not be possible for my computer to use the entire drive without that Hard Disk Overlay software and partitioning the drive for sizes that the BIOS can accept.

I would think that in your situation you would have to install that MaxBlast software which will install Hard Disk Overlay and allow you to set up 4 30GB partitions that the BIOS can work with.

Newest Maxblast software.
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxblast3.htm
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxblast_3_cd_iso.htm
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxblast3win.htm
Big Drive Enabler or drives bigger than 137GB on XP + 2000
http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/big_drive_enabler.htm

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/maxblast3win.htm

Veblin I downloaded this and installed it and it now recognises Maxtor 6Y120LO as 33.89 gig so it would gain Me 2 gig and a bit more but still does not recognise it as 120

thanxs for the help

DaOsT

Did you partition the 120GB drive?
Is it formated NTSF or FAT32?
Is your 60GB drive partitioned?
If the 60GB drive is partitioned it is probably because there is that limit to the size that any partition can be.

The largest size any partition can be is 137GB (or is it 127??? I need more sleep).

Veblin

no as the Maxblast 3 said it only recognised My HD as 33.89 gig ....
NTFS
No the 60 gig aint partitioned but I dont operate the drive on 100% run it at 95% so that its total capacity is 55.8 gig

Praetor I believe it is 137 gig but could be wrong

thanxs again Veblin and Praetor your help is greatly appreciated

DaOsT

http://h20015.www2.hp.com/hub_search/document.jhtml?lc=en&docName=c00032382&prodId=compaqpres234971&cc=gb

thats My pc spec not the other

The intergrated HD Controller on My pc is type
ATA 100
the maxtor 6Y120LO..IS AN ATA133 And SATA 150...does that make an incompatability issue ......if so sory to waste ppl's time.......if that is the case would an ATA 133 card be able to fix the issue??

My apologise

DaOsT

Quote:

---

The largest size any partition can be is 137GB (or is it 127???

---

Actually its both, depending on the method used for determining the byte count.

If you use the method that hard drive manufacturers use where a byte = 1000, then it is 137g, if you use the standard computer byte size of 1024 then it is 128. Of course there are ways around the limit now since larger drives are out now, but that used to be the limit of the ATA spec.

i have just purchased a 120GB hard drive, and am installing it now, and i think i know where your problem is. You are able to set your drives as either master or slave, and you are also able to limit your GB's by repositioning a small tab on the plug-in pins on the back. You should remove this pin in order to allow 128GB's. According to mine, if i leave it on, it will limit me to 32GB's.

Hope this helps out...

THANXS ALOT ALL!!!!!!!!!

Fixed it thank Odin

limeyluke you gave Me the idea of pulling it back out to have a look at the settings again and it needed setting to cable select NOT slave which I find very weird but what the hell it works

can I ask how I change the percentage of how much space your hard drive stops you from using Mine is set at 90 percent and I want to up it to atleast 95%

once again thanxs all

DaOsT

Are you talking about the fact that you don't get a full 120gb and are getting about 110gb instead. Going back to what Xian said, you aren't going to get the full amount, because windows don't work that way, you see that would be to easy. I run WD 120gb drives, and I only see about 111GB on each. That's the window doing that.

OK THANXS BIRD I got 114 gig that will do now damm site better than 32

DaOsT