On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 13:50:32 +0000, Shep© wrote:

Partition sizes are a limitation of the O/S.Drive sizes are a
limitation of the hardware.If the full size of the drive is not seen
by the BIOS then partitioning the drive will make no difference.There
is an update for WinXP to be able to see and partition above 137 gig
but this will not defeat a hardware limitation.Hardware limitations
can be defeated in some cases by a BIOS update but if not then a
Controller card

Hi Shep, thanks for the info, by controller card, do you mean this:

http://tinyurl.com/wziy

I was thinking about buying one (I have plenty of PCI slots free) and at
this price I can afford it. If it is the right hardware, how will it work
with my existing MB IDE channels. Does it take over as the default IDE
controller away from the Mb or is it supplementary?

Also, what about booting off the card? Can you install XP on a partition
and boot from the card? What about Bios impact, are the bios changed by
the card, do you have to install some sort of program to change the bios?

Sorry for all the questions but any help would be appreciated as if
installing this card solves the problem, I'll willingly buy it to save time
effort.



and as a last resort as DDO(Dynamic Disk Overlay)
program usually freely available from the drive maker's site if not
already supplied with the drive.
More info here,
http://www.geocities.com/sheppola/hard.html

Thanks I'll take a look


If there is a BIOS update and you wish to flash the BIOS then find the
correct flash program and BIOS .rom file and I'll make you a bootable
CDR/W .ISO image which is a more secure way of flashing the BIOS than
the older and less robust floppy disks.This presumes you have a CDR/W
drive.

Thanks for the offer but I know so little about bios updating atm that I
think I'm going to have to read more first!