Boot limitation of IDE controller

[gallicbear]

Hi there. I have been working at reviving an old Dell Dimension 2400. Started out installing Windows 7 on an 80GB drive. Worked great after applying the XP drivers for graphics, etc as administrator. So then I went back to xp on that drive. Then I wanted to install Windows 7 on a 200GB Maxtor drive. Wouldn't take it. Didn't even work to install xp or a linux system on that 200GB drive. Went through the whole process of installing, but wouldn't boot. The files were there, the bios recognizes the drive. Windows 7 setup finally told me the error, something like: the IDE controller could not handle the drive. Weird. I know, you are going to tell me to scrap my pc, etc. But I just like the challenge... Right now, the drive is hooked up as additional storage. But that's all I have been able to use as, no matter how many formats (full or quick) it has gone through. Any ideas? Partitioning? Boot sector not killed by format? Thanks in advance.

 

[Mellon Head]

This is an IDE drive? Do you have the Master/Slave shunts set properly? It should be set to Master if you want to boot from it, IIRC. The drive can also be set to "Cable Select", as long as it's plugged in to the right end of the cable (usually the connector at the end of the cable, not the middle).

 

[gallicbear]

Thanks, Mellon Head. Yes, I am aware of jumper settings. And it is properly jumpered as master.

 

[TVeblen]

Wow. This takes me back. I had forgotten all about this stuff.

Older PCs around 2002 vintage had a hard drive size limitation of 137GB. This is a BIOS level limitation for PATA interfaces using ATA5 or older addressing (28 bit).

To use drives larger than 137GB I seem to recall that you could create partitions smaller than that. Windows XP could address more than 137GB after Service Pack 1, but the BIOS still had to support 48 bit addressing.

You could check to see if there is a BIOS update that addresses the limitation, but the problem could be hard wired.

 

[gallicbear]

Thanks, TVeblen. As far as BIOS update I am at the latest revision. They didn't do one after A05.
One thing I noticed in Easeus partition manager, is that the first few sectors (1 to 63) of that drive are 'unallocated space'. And the Partition Manager will not let you integrate that space with the rest of the drive. It's just approx. 7 MB, but that includes the boot sector.

 

[TVeblen]

It is a Windows convention. Windows wants to have a small space at the beginning and the end of hard drives. It needs that space in the case where the user wants to create Dynamic Disks.

Easeus is a good program. A poor one will just allocate that space, and by the time any glitch pops up you will have forgotten all about doing it.

 

[gallicbear]

I understand. Thanks. Still working on it.