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XPS Gen 2 Hard Drive Limit?

post #1 of 13
4/12/07 at 5:14pm
Thread Starter 
I recently purchased a new Seagate Momentus 5400RPM 160GB drive for my XPS Gen 2 laptop. I was upgrading from the 4200RPM 100GB it came with. Unfortunately... it seems the damn thing won't recognize the HD for its true size. Multiple partitioning programs keep saying the drive is only 128GB

I've seen this issue on older computers where the ATA controller (card or on chipset) is limited in its maximum access capacity. I'd really never have suspected the XPS Gen2 would suffer from this limitation! Please tell me there is something I can do to get access to the remainder of my drive. Thank you!
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post #2 of 13
4/12/07 at 5:43pm
Are you using a up to date BIOS?
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post #3 of 13
4/12/07 at 11:28pm
First of all I have that same disc in my XPS 2, no problems but a couple of limitations...

BIOS and partitioning programs that run out of windows will report the disc as 137GB (or sometimes some other number such as you are experiencing).

Once in Windows (has to be SP1 or above I belive) you will be able to get to the whole 160GB, if you need to modify partitions before you install use something such as the brilliant (and free) GParted. As it boots it runs from Linux you can see the full 160GB like you can when in windows. Don't trust programs such as Partition Magic and the like that will be able to see the whole 160GB in windows but when they restart to do the operation they will only be able to see 137GB and will screw everything up (found that out the hard way).

Only other limitation I have found is trying to boot a partition that is past 137GB, I used to run and 80GB XP partition with a 20GB Linux partition at the end of my 100GB disc, tried this with the 160GB and it wouldn't work, so just have the 20GB Linux (and 10GB OSx86 now) at the start before XP.
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post #4 of 13
10/23/07 at 1:35pm
Hi

Kind of old thread but here goes....

I want to upgrade my XPS Gen2 with a new HD. I found a 250GB Western Digital that I really want to buy and put in my laptop.

After reading the above posts I became a bit hesitant but do you think this would work?

Partition the drive with Gparted as:

Partition 1: 50GB for XP at the start of the drive
Partition 2: 50GB for Ubuntu after the XP partition
Partition 3: 150GB at the end of the drive for storage

Any comments on this whether it would work or not is very appreciated.

Best regards
Tobbe
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post #5 of 13
10/23/07 at 3:04pm
K9387 was just warning you against using particular partitioning tools. Also, since your boot partitions will be in the first 137, I can't see any reason why it would fail. Just curious, are you gonna make your storage partition ext3, ntfs, or fat?
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post #6 of 13
10/23/07 at 3:46pm
zzpulp: I plan to make it NTFS as both read and write on NTFS works fine in Ubuntu 7.10, at least I have had no problems so far.
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post #7 of 13
10/23/07 at 4:51pm
Have you got winxp sp2 OS as there is an issue with winxp (without sp2) as it will only recognise the first 128gb of the drive.
I suspect that is your problem looking at the age of you laptop.
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post #8 of 13
10/23/07 at 4:57pm
Of course I have XP SP2. I don't really see what the age of my laptop (2 years) has to do with having SP2 or not for windows XP.

Additionally I dont have a problem yet as I havent bought the drive yet....
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post #9 of 13
10/23/07 at 10:49pm
@Tobbev

1. You wont get the full 250GB of storage. 16-20 GB will used for partition infomration.

2. i don't think the XPS Gen 2 supports SATA drives

3. You will see a difference in performance with a 7200 RPM drive. You may want to consider it.
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post #10 of 13
10/23/07 at 11:23pm
The reason you dont have 250 GB is because of the differing meanings of gigabyte in SI and computers. Hence, the term gibibyte gaining prevalence.

And as he said, make sure the drive is PATA.
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post #11 of 13
10/24/07 at 1:43am
I know that all 250GB will not be available, but thats life I guess....

The drive I'm considering to buy is:

WD Scorpio 2,5" PATA 250gb/8mb 5400 rpm

Correct me if I'm wrong but I dont think there exist such large 7200rpm drives?

Regards
Tobbe
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post #12 of 13
10/24/07 at 12:31pm
Yeah, the biggest 7200 RPM SATA notebook drive is 100 GB I believe.
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post #13 of 13
10/25/07 at 7:08am
I got one of these from Newegg, and so far it works great.
NBHD 250G|WD 5K 8M ATA6 WD2500BEVE
I had a 100 GB 7200rpm, and the performance feels the same.
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