Only have 2.1 gig showing on 6gig drive

I hope this makes sense, I'm not great at typing/verbalizing problems, but
here goes nothing.



I bought three used older 266 MHz p2 laptops a while back, one terca 8000 &
two versa lx. One versa (which I've already resold) had a four gig hd.



I've also sold the terca8000, but before selling, I pulled out the hd and
noticed it was actually a 8GB Toshiba Hard Drive Pack in it, but hd property
showed it to be 2.1 gb, and under hd device property it lists
as"IBM-DTNA-22160. I fdisk with win98 boot disk and enable large hd support
but still end up with only 2.1 gig . So I sold it as is.



That last versa (which I'm keeping) is also running 98se, and only shows hd
to be 2.1 gig in property's same as the terca which is weird because when I
pulled it's (the versa's) hd out it is a 6 gig IBM drive pack. I ran a low
level format or some similar type program I found from IBM, but the program
identified the drive as a Toshiba 2.1 gig I ran it anyways but it couldn't
find a problem.



This seems too weird to be a coincidence, and I could use the missing 4gigs
of room on my versa, hoping someone has an explanation.



Could it be some type of third party software doing this? I even installed
win-xp on it to see if NT file format would restore the hd's 6gig potential.



I purchased these laptops from a guy who I think was teaching computer
courses, but I lost his number, plus I got them pretty cheap so I wouldn't
want to bother the guy with questions even if I could find it.

 

|I hope this makes sense, I'm not great at typing/verbalizing problems, but
| here goes nothing.
|
| I bought three used older 266 MHz p2 laptops a while back, one terca 8000
&
| two versa lx. One versa (which I've already resold) had a four gig hd.
|
| I've also sold the terca8000, but before selling, I pulled out the hd and
| noticed it was actually a 8GB Toshiba Hard Drive Pack in it, but hd
property
| showed it to be 2.1 gb, and under hd device property it lists
| as"IBM-DTNA-22160. I fdisk with win98 boot disk and enable large hd
support
| but still end up with only 2.1 gig . So I sold it as is.
|
| That last versa (which I'm keeping) is also running 98se, and only shows
hd
| to be 2.1 gig in property's same as the terca which is weird because when
I
| pulled it's (the versa's) hd out it is a 6 gig IBM drive pack. I ran a
low
| level format or some similar type program I found from IBM, but the
program
| identified the drive as a Toshiba 2.1 gig I ran it anyways but it couldn't
| find a problem.
|
| This seems too weird to be a coincidence, and I could use the missing
4gigs
| of room on my versa, hoping someone has an explanation.
|
| Could it be some type of third party software doing this? I even installed
| win-xp on it to see if NT file format would restore the hd's 6gig
potential.
|
| I purchased these laptops from a guy who I think was teaching computer
| courses, but I lost his number, plus I got them pretty cheap so I wouldn't
| want to bother the guy with questions even if I could find it.
|
It's quite possible that the BIOS of the computer is unable to access hard
drives larger than 2Gig. You might see about a BIOS update information. If
that is the case, and you can't update the BIOS, the alternative is a disk
manager program like Ontrack.

 

Probably due to a BIOS restriction. You could find out if there is a BIOS
update. Otherwise use something like EZ Drive
http://www.storagedrivers.com/drivers/12/12708.htm which will partition the
drive into 2GB partitions and make the BIOS think that each one complies
with its limit restrictions.

 

Thanks Tim,
I forgot to include that before selling the other versa (one with a 4gig
drive which showed correctly in property's) I swapped out the drives and was
able to rule the bios out as a problem.

 

|
| | >
| > | > |I hope this makes sense, I'm not great at typing/verbalizing problems,
| > but
| > | here goes nothing.
| > |
| > | I bought three used older 266 MHz p2 laptops a while back, one terca
| > 8000
| > &
| > | two versa lx. One versa (which I've already resold) had a four gig hd.
| > |
| > | I've also sold the terca8000, but before selling, I pulled out the hd
| > and
| > | noticed it was actually a 8GB Toshiba Hard Drive Pack in it, but hd
| > property
| > | showed it to be 2.1 gb, and under hd device property it lists
| > | as"IBM-DTNA-22160. I fdisk with win98 boot disk and enable large hd
| > support
| > | but still end up with only 2.1 gig . So I sold it as is.
| > |
| > | That last versa (which I'm keeping) is also running 98se, and only
shows
| > hd
| > | to be 2.1 gig in property's same as the terca which is weird because
| > when
| > I
| > | pulled it's (the versa's) hd out it is a 6 gig IBM drive pack. I ran
a
| > low
| > | level format or some similar type program I found from IBM, but the
| > program
| > | identified the drive as a Toshiba 2.1 gig I ran it anyways but it
| > couldn't
| > | find a problem.
| > |
| > | This seems too weird to be a coincidence, and I could use the missing
| > 4gigs
| > | of room on my versa, hoping someone has an explanation.
| > |
| > | Could it be some type of third party software doing this? I even
| > installed
| > | win-xp on it to see if NT file format would restore the hd's 6gig
| > potential.
| > |
| > | I purchased these laptops from a guy who I think was teaching computer
| > | courses, but I lost his number, plus I got them pretty cheap so I
| > wouldn't
| > | want to bother the guy with questions even if I could find it.
| > |
| > It's quite possible that the BIOS of the computer is unable to access
hard
| > drives larger than 2Gig. You might see about a BIOS update information.
If
| > that is the case, and you can't update the BIOS, the alternative is a
disk
| > manager program like Ontrack.
| >
| >
| Thanks Tim,
| I forgot to include that before selling the other versa (one with a 4gig
| drive which showed correctly in property's) I swapped out the drives and
was
| able to rule the bios out as a problem.
|
Okay - I just pulled this up on your drive ID and it shows it is *supposed*
to be 2.1 Gig:
http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/storage/66883/

 

I know it's weird because when I pull the physical drive out the stick on it
is marked as
" 6.0GB HITACHI
808-878745-520A
A2+ 02/2000 "

I can't understand why this would be on too separate laptops both having the
physical drives marked wrong, plus the stickers didn't look to of have been
tampered with. But if it's not a software related problem, then I guess it
must be the only possible explanation.

 

assuming that you first deleted everything when you used fdisk...
the drives may have been jumpered for "bios limitation"
some drives have the option to be jumpered as smaller than they actually are
for machines with limited bios's.

also, the drives may have been some type of a factory replacement drive.
some mfgs will setup a drive as smaller than it's actual size .

ie: give out a 6 gig drive to replace ,exactly, a defective 2 gig drive
in that case there is nothing you could have done to gain the extra space