Hi, all. What size should a bios see for a 250GB harddrive?
Also, what size is the drive after formating, if partitioned as one drive?
With the newer motherboards, (such as MSI K8N Neo4 Platimun) is the 137GB barrier a problem?
Thanks.

250 GB (decimal) = 250,000,000,000 Bytes

250,000,000,000 Bytes / 1024 = 244,140,625 KB

244,140,625 KB / 1024 = 238,418.58 MB

238,418.58 MB / 1024 = 232.83 GB

So, 250 GB (decimal) = 232.83 GB (binary). I'm not exactly sure what partitioning and formatting would do to it, but i would think it still should be pretty close to 230 GB.

The 137 GB barrier shouldn't be a problem with that board, but remember that it not only takes an up-to-date BIOS to get past that barrier, it also requires an up-to-date OS (2000 SP3 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305098) or XP SP1 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013), if you're running Windows).

Thanks, yes, I'll be using Windows 2000 with SP4.

Then you should be all set once you perform the registry change mentioned in the KB article!

Isn't that kind of a catch 22? Then one can't format the drive the first time for the full 250GB until the OS is installed, updated and the registry change is done?

(This would be for a SATA drive.)

SATA doesn't have this limitation. Sorry, I guess we should've clarified that earlier... :o

And there is a workaround for IDE drives; read the KB article.

The operating system must be installed on the first partition that is less than or equal to 137 GB and the rest of the hard disk divided into one or more remaining partitions when the EnableBigLba registry value is enabled on a computer without a 48-bit LBA compatible BIOS that has a hard disk with a capacity of more than 137 GB.

Oops, maybe you did read the KB article, that wouldn't apply in this case. Sorry.

I'm not sure what the answer is. :confused: