Vaio laptop with XP-SP2 not recognising space above 130GB

pondlife

I have just installed a new WD250GB IDE drive* as the C drive in a 3-year old Sony Vaio VGN-B1XP laptop which reports BIOS Version R0042G9 and uses the Intel 852/855 GM/GME chipset. I booted with an original XPGold CD, slow-formatted the drive, installed XPGold, then applied SP1 and SP2. Disk Management reports the drive as 127.99GB. Norton PartitionMagic 8 does the same. The support guys at Norton tell me this is a BIOS issue, but I see from one of the stickies on this forum that BIOS constraints are not a problem with XP-SP2. What am I missing? How can I get the full capacity of the drive? Help!!

* Western Digital Scorpio 250GB 5400RPM IDE ATA/100 2,5"

KachiWachi · Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 1:35 pm Post subject:

Does Windows Explorer see the full capacity of the drive?
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CPU - DFI 586IPVG, K6-2/+ 450 (Cyrix MII 433), i430VX, 128MB EDO.
BIOS patched by BiosMan (Jan Steunebrink).

pondlife · Posted: Sun Dec 30, 2007 2:04 pm Post subject:

No, WindowsExplorer/MyComputer reports Total Size = 127Gb

cp · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 11:54 am Post subject:

you can still install the intel ide tools. they have an excellent interface providing a lot of useful information. just visit the intel download center to get it for free.
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If you email me include [WIMSBIOS] in the subject.

pondlife · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 12:59 pm Post subject:

Thanks. I guess you mean the Intel Application Accelerator? This seems to require the Intel Chipset Software Installation Utility. The current version does not show my chipset in its list of supported chipsets, which confused me, but I now see that my chipset is supported by an earlier version (.1007). I tried that, but received an 'incompatible hardware' report as my processor is Pentium M and the ICSIU requires P3 or P4. Hmm...

KachiWachi · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 1:07 pm Post subject:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303013/en-us ?
_________________
CPU - DFI 586IPVG, K6-2/+ 450 (Cyrix MII 433), i430VX, 128MB EDO.
BIOS patched by BiosMan (Jan Steunebrink).

pondlife · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 1:22 pm Post subject:

Thanks KachiWachi. I has tried this with no effect. Believe it to be unnecessary with XP-SP2.

cp · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 1:27 pm Post subject:

version 2.2.2 does support your chipset.
and YES, SP2 should automagically support LBA48 out of the box. i have several machines running Intel 430FX (the first and original Intel Pentium I chipset) using LBA48 with Debian Linux.
_________________
If you email me include [WIMSBIOS] in the subject.

pondlife · Posted: Mon Dec 31, 2007 2:33 pm Post subject:

Installation of version 2.2.2 failed (driver did not install). Suggestions?

KachiWachi · Posted: Tue Jan 01, 2008 1:09 pm Post subject:

NP.

I just posted the Microsoft information as a reference.

Thanks.
_________________
CPU - DFI 586IPVG, K6-2/+ 450 (Cyrix MII 433), i430VX, 128MB EDO.
BIOS patched by BiosMan (Jan Steunebrink).