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I have a Packard Bell C3300 laptop with an expired hard drive (40 Gb). Could i fit a new Hard drive of larger capacity and will the bios accept it ? Thanks in advance
Dent
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check the jumper settings of the hard drive
The drive is larger than 32GB, but the operating system only recognizes 32GB.
If the operating system, BIOS or DiscWizard can only recognize 32 GB of the drive it may be caused by one of the following:
Drive Jumpers: Applies to Mac and Window users. On drives that are larger than 32 GB there is a Capacity Limitation Jumper (CLJ), also known as the Limit Capacity Jumper or the Alternate Capacity (AC) Jumper setting. This jumper will limit the capacity of the drive to 32 GB and should only be used when the BIOS hangs when trying to auto-detect the drive. If you have two jumpers shunts on the drive you will need to remove the CLJ or AC jumper. If you format the drive with the CLJ or AC jumper then the drive capacity will be limited to 32GB. After removing the CLJ or AC jumper the drive will still be recognized as 32GB. You must reformat the drive without the CLJ or AC jumper to gain the full capacity of the drive. The other option is to create a second partition with the remaining unallocated disc space.
BIOS: On older systems (pre- November 1998) the BIOS may not support drives that are larger than 32 GB. In the BIOS setup please set the drive type to AUTO detect. If the BIOS detects the full capacity of the drive then the BIOS will support the capacity of the drive. If not please perform one of the following:
Check with the system or motherboard manufacturer for any BIOS upgrades for the system.
(Recommended) Purchase a PCI ATA controller card that will support the capacity of the drive. The two benefits of ATA controller cards are:
The ability to support large capacity drives
The ability to support the faster transfer rates of the drive.
Operating System: Windows have a 32 GB format limitation for FAT 32. That means if you formatted the drive in FAT 32 with Windows, the largest partition supported is 32 GB. You will need to format the drive in NTFS if you want to partition the drive larger than 32 GB. The other option is to create a second partition with the remaining unallocated disc space.
Incorrect Reporting to the BIOS: The drive itself may be reporting the incorrect size to the BIOS. In order to correct this, you will need to download SeaTools for DOS, boot into the SeaTools disc, and run the Set Capacity utility. It is recommended that you only have the hard drive reporting the incorrect capacity connected to your system while performing the following steps. Any other hard drives should be disconnected.
It is recommended that you back up any important data on the hard drive before using SeaTools to set the drive size. This is a potentially data destructive procedure. Seagate is not responsible for any lost data.
After correcting the drive capacity, the drive may still show a partition size of 32GB but with unallocated space. You must delete its current partition then repartition and format the drive to gain the full capacity of the drive. The other option is to create a second partition with the remaining unallocated disc space.
Insert the SeaTools for DOS CD or floppy disc into the appropriate drive, and restart your computer. When SeaTools boots up, carefully read the license agreement, and press Y if you accept it.
Select the correct drive from the list using the mouse or keyboard.
Choose Advanced Features .
Choose Set Capacity to Max Native.
Once the capacity has been set SeaTools has returned to the main screen, take the SeaTools disc out of the drive and completely power down the system. The system needs to be shut down so any cached information is cleared. If you simply reboot or reset your computer without completely powering it down first, the corrected capacity setting will not take effect.
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It depends on what you run on this laptop ..but if you only run windows xp ..you do not need a larger hard drive ..and if you only need space to store data ..you can just get a usb external hard drive and avoid the trouble ..The hard drive will be fully usable in other computers too and this is the advantage if you will upgrade in the future to another one with high performances .. If you have at least a 1.6 cpu on it ..and 1 G of ram memory and you think you may run windows 7 ..you can upgrade it to a larger hard disk ..but remember that this one runs on ata ..and I'm not sure it worth the trouble . If you have at least 1 G of ram memory on it you can run windows 7 with this hard disk too ..but you will probably have to change the partitions configurations and make C drive at least 40 G so to have space to run it proper.. let me know if you have other thoughts related with this matter ..and i will answer it ..Please rate my answer to help my activity here ..thank you ..!
The BIOS in the ACER determines the maximum size of the hard drive it can support. Check the laptop's specification to see the max size you can install in this model laptop. It appears that the max size your laptop can support is 140 Gb (unformatted). 137Gb formatted.
I suggest you install a hard drive up to 140 Gb capacity in your laptop and place the 320 Gb hard drive in an USB hard drive adapter case and when you attach this hard drive to the USB port in your ACER laptop then you will be able to get the full 320 Gb capacity after you delete the partition and create a 320 Gb partition and format the hard drive.
Your Fujitsu MHV2040AH is an IDE 2.5" 5400 rpm 40 GB hard drive.
Most Notebooks nowadays will use 2.5" SATA hard drive which is not compatible with IDE. New IDE are getting harder to find and are therefore in general more expensive to buy than the equivalent SATA
You should be able to update the drive with most 2.5" HDD with either 5400rpm or 7200rpm (faster) with an IDE interface. Common 2.5 IDE capacity would be 120Gb and 250Gb (320GB and 500GB are also available but could be a bit expensive). The important factors are physical size to fit in your notebook/casing and IDE interface. The BIOS support for larger drive can also be a factor but as a rule, worst case situation, a larger capacity drive can always be used at a lower capacity
You can replace it with a larger one, just make sure you buy the proper hard drive. If its and IDE hard drive, buy and IDE hard drive, if its an SATA Hard drive, buy an SATA Hard drive. also make sure after you install the new hard drive that you use the operating system cd to format the drive and to install the operating system.
You can use 20/40 Gb hard drives. the BIOS may be too old to support the 60/80Gb hard drive.
The only problem is, that it is impossible to purchase new hard drives of these capacities, the smallest capacity available now are 120Gb and larger.
You may be able to get 2nd hand drivers, but you won't not know how long they will work until they fail, probably doesn't matter, they should be cheap.
Yes, there is. Match the type of drive (Serial ATA or Parallel ATA) you get with what you have. Make sure your Satellite sees the drive in the BIOS. For drives larger than 120 GB, recommend operating systems Windows XP (Service Pack 2 or higher) or Vista. Older OS's have a 137 GB limitation (they only see the first 137 GB of the hard drive despite its size).
The hard drive that is installed in the V20 laptop is a 30 Gb IDE capacity hard drive.
The smallest IDE hard drive that you can purchase today is in the order of 80 to 100 Gb capacity. The BIOS in the V20 may not be able to support a hard drive this large.
If you install a hard drive of this capacity the BIOS may not detect it or it won't allow you to access the full capacity of the hard drive.
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