8 GB limit on a Pavilion 8240

[videobruce]

I'm up against the classic 8GB limit on a 15GB HDD.
There is no bios update, it is a 430TX chipset with a PII 233 processor in a Pavilion 8240 system.

Is a bios issue, chipset issue or is it a processor issue?

Is there anything that can be done or am I screwed?

This is running FAT32 and eventually loading 2k. Win95 is there now. BTW, there is 256MB of PC66 installed.

[Steve]

You can download the drive overlay software at the HDD manufacturers website. It should allow you to use the full 15GB. :)


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[no-mbr]

Assuming you have a PCI slot left you could buy a Promise or other brand of IDE addin controller. I think they work great and will speed up whatever drive you are using. Drive overlays pretty much suck and create situations "ripe" for data loss.....

Good Luck.

[videobruce]

I understand there are many issues with that software. This is a Maxtor 531DX and I am familar with MaxBLast, but really don't want to use it.

How about a bios update from somewhere other than HP?

[sleddog]

Originally posted by videobruce
Is there anything that can be done or am I screwed?


In addition to the foregoing suggestions you may:

- Check for BIOS upgrades. The limitation is a BIOS problem;

- Use the 15gb drive as a secondary drive, with a smaller (<8gb) disk installed as the primary drive. Windows 2000 will not have a problem with the size of the 2ndary drive as it will access that hardware directly and not depend on the BIOS. The primary (boot) drive must be <8gb.

[videobruce]

I did load the Maxblast software and will try this though I really doubt it will work without alot of problems.

I tried to access the drive with Partition Magic after I installed this drive overlay, but got a error message saying the drive geometry was different and showed the drive was 'Bad'.

[classicsoftware]

I have used the overlay many times w/o problem. You will have probelms with any software that alters the setup from the overlay

[mjc]

Basically once you go with the Maxblast you are locked out most third party partitioning programs.

The danger with looking for a non-HP BIOS is that if you do find one that will work and all you have is th HP restore disk you have just flashed yourself out of an OS. But the bigger danger is that you will find one that should work, but won't, thereby killing the mobo (most HPs do not have socketed BIOS chips....)

[videobruce]

That's what I'm worried about. I have ruled out the bios idea, though it would of been nice if HP would of updated it to allow larger drives since it does have a '98 date where most other bios do allow larger drives.

I did use MaxBlast (since I already had it, but did look for a update) and it did work. Now I tried to use Partition Magic, but it gave me a bad geometry error when I tried to access the new drive. I am also getting a SMART warning on bootup after I loaded 2k. I turned SMAET off in the bios but it still barks at me. It does boot into 2k ok.

I am going to go back and redo and reload MaxBlast and 2k since I never used a drive overlay software before.