Slave Hard Drive Size Not Fully Recognized

[biday77]

My new system specs are Gigabyte K7T Triton (Via KT 600 chipset),XP 2500,512 MB Kingston PC 2700 memory,two identical Maxtor 80 GB 8 MB cache 7200 hard drives,CDRW,DVD Rom,Gainward GeForce2 Ti450 video card, SB Live 5.1 and Windows XP Pro.
The two hard drives were in my previous set up. I changed my system due to a motherboard failure. The hard drives worked fine and do so in my new setup except for the fact that whichever hard drive is in the Slave position is recognized by the BIOS and Windows as only 32.5 GB in size. Presently this drive is one large partition. The BIOS is set to Auto Detect the hard drives.
When I first set up this new system my present Master was the Slave, It was not fully recognized as 80 GB,so I disconnected this drive,and made the other drive the Master,with the "first" drive disconnected.
The Win XP Pro installation process somehow fixed the size (I wish I could remember exactly how) and it was then recognized as 80 GB. I installed Windows XP Pro and set up three partitions. My problem is that the other,the "first" Master
hard drive is now in the Slave position and is only seen as 32 MB. I have double checked both drives' jumpers and cables. I am really fearful of doing anything which might impair my present Master drive for it took me many hours to set it up.
I am at a loss as to how to proceed to get the second HD seen at it's 80 GB size or what and where this problem originated. I need it to backup over 54GB of music,etc. This is my first Gigabyte motherboard.
I have mailed Gigabyte tech support but have no answer yet. Is it the hard drive or the BIOS where the problem originates?
Also the system does not shut down except by holding the power button for 4 seconds (after clicking Shut Down)If I don't use the Power button the system will restart Windows. This "button shut" down works OK--no data loss or boot up problems the next time I start up,but I have always had the screen Shut Down power off the system automatically.
Any detailed help will be greatly appreciated.

[Confused]

I'll let the more knowledgeable address the HD issue. The power off thing is addressed in the BIOS. There is a option for instant off or 4 second delay. Your's is set to 4 seconds. Personally I would leave it at 4 seconds. If you set it to instant off and accidently bump the power switch your PC will power down. That would be inconvenient if you were in the middle of something.
Chas

[biday77]

Problem solved by reading thru the posts in this great forum--hurraaaay.
mike breck
Member (13 bit)

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Scotland
Posts: 4693


As ff says, post your mobo and BIOS details, as if you have an older mobo, then it could be a BIOS limitation.

If the mobo is a fairly new one, then check you have set the jumpers to Cable Select and you are using an 80 wire ATA/66/100 cable with the black, gray, and blue connectors. Black goes to HD, blue goes to motherboard, and gray is for any slave devices.

When you use this 80 wire cable you just set the HD jumpers to Cable Select (not to Master or Slave) and the HDs position on the cable determines whether it is a Master or Slave e.g. when you connect the HD to the Black connector, the system IDs the HD as Master.

Also make sure you have not jumpered the HD using the Capacity Limitation Jumper (CLJ). This will limit the capacity seen by the BIOS to 32GB.

Check out the jumper diagrams here

http://service.maxtor.com/rightnow/...m%20jumpers.htm

You can also double-check the jumper settings by searching for your particular model's settings at the Maxtor site.

Let us know how you get on.
09-11-2003 04:29 AM
Mike,
I was going nuts using the same Maxtor drive as a Slave with a new system--same problem of the BIOS only seeing 32GB of the actual 80GB. Your post was GREAT.
Thank you,Thank You....
BOB