The 80GB drive on Sony VGN-B3XP was about to die, so I purchased a new
160GB drive. Cloned the old one, fitted new one and works fine except
for the 137GB limit. The boot up BIOS says 137GB IDE for the drive.
I contacted Sony and they said there was no BIOS firmware update to
break the 137GB limit
Without a firmware update, do I just accept that I have 23GB I cannot
access? Not a big issue, just rather annoying.
Does anyone know of a reliable firmware update for the problem?
mscotgrove@aol.com wrote in news:f4476fc7-661c-49ac-aa76-56326ad668b9@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com
> The 80GB drive on Sony VGN-B3XP was about to die, so I purchased a new
> 160GB drive. Cloned the old one, fitted new one and works fine except
> for the 137GB limit. The boot up BIOS says 137GB IDE for the drive.
> I contacted Sony and they said there was no BIOS firmware update to
> break the 137GB limit.
So that is only a problem in DOS. Do you still use DOS?
In which case you may want to know if it wraps or just provides
access to only 137GB and errors out on access over 137GB.
>
> Without a firmware update, do I just accept that I have 23GB I cannot
> access?
Like that you don't kow about drive overlays.
> Not a big issue, just rather annoying.
>
> Does anyone know of a reliable firmware update for the problem?
There's people that produce patched versions of some BIOSes for a fee.
mscotgrove@aol.com <mscotgrove@aol.com> kenjka:
> The 80GB drive on Sony VGN-B3XP was about to die, so I purchased a new
> 160GB drive. Cloned the old one, fitted new one and works fine except
> for the 137GB limit. The boot up BIOS says 137GB IDE for the drive.
> I contacted Sony and they said there was no BIOS firmware update to
> break the 137GB limit
> Without a firmware update, do I just accept that I have 23GB I cannot
> access? Not a big issue, just rather annoying.
> Does anyone know of a reliable firmware update for the problem?
On Jul 24, 6:41*pm, "Squeeze" <rubberd...@duckies.au> wrote:
> mscotgr...@aol.com wrote innews:f4476fc7-661c-49ac-aa76-56326ad668b9@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com
>
> > The 80GB drive on Sony VGN-B3XP was about to die, so I purchased a new
> > 160GB drive. *Cloned the old one, fitted new one and works fine except
> > for the 137GB limit. *The boot up BIOS says 137GB IDE for the drive.
> > I contacted Sony and they said there was no BIOS firmware update to
> > break the 137GB limit.
>
> So that is only a problem in DOS. Do you still use DOS?
> In which case you may want to know if it wraps or just provides
> access to only 137GB and errors out on access over 137GB.
>
>
>
> > Without a firmware update, do I just accept that I have 23GB I cannot
> > access? *
>
> Like that you don't kow about drive overlays.
>
> > Not a big issue, just rather annoying.
>
> > Does anyone know of a reliable firmware update for the problem?
>
> There's people that produce patched versions of some BIOSes for a fee.
>
>
>
>
>
> > Michael- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
I am not using DOS, but Windows XP SP3
The BIOS is where the limit appears to be
Am looking at the www.48bitlba.com site the next poster pointed me
to. It may help.
In article <4888b4d4$0$13848$8f2e0ebb@news.shared-secrets.com>, "Squeeze" <rubberduck@duckies.au> wrote:
>mscotgrove@aol.com wrote in
> news:f4476fc7-661c-49ac-aa76-56326ad668b9@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com
>> The 80GB drive on Sony VGN-B3XP was about to die, so I purchased a new
>> 160GB drive. Cloned the old one, fitted new one and works fine except
>> for the 137GB limit. The boot up BIOS says 137GB IDE for the drive.
>
>> I contacted Sony and they said there was no BIOS firmware update to
>> break the 137GB limit.
>
>So that is only a problem in DOS. Do you still use DOS?
>In which case you may want to know if it wraps or just provides
>access to only 137GB and errors out on access over 137GB.
>
That is not just a problem in DOS, until XP SP1, you still had LBA48 issues
>>
>> Without a firmware update, do I just accept that I have 23GB I cannot
>> access?
>
>Like that you don't kow about drive overlays.
>
>> Not a big issue, just rather annoying.
>>
>> Does anyone know of a reliable firmware update for the problem?
>
>There's people that produce patched versions of some BIOSes for a fee.
>
>>
>> Michael
GMAN wrote in news:g6aun2$rvr$1@news.xmission.com
> In article <4888b4d4$0$13848$8f2e0ebb@news.shared-secrets.com>, "Squeeze" <rubberduck@duckies.au> wrote:
> > mscotgrove@aol.com wrote in news:f4476fc7-661c-49ac-aa76-56326ad668b9@l64g2000hse.googlegroups.com
> > > The 80GB drive on Sony VGN-B3XP was about to die, so I purchased a new
> > > 160GB drive. Cloned the old one, fitted new one and works fine except
> > > for the 137GB limit. The boot up BIOS says 137GB IDE for the drive.
> >
> > > I contacted Sony and they said there was no BIOS firmware update to
> > > break the 137GB limit.
> >
> > So that is only a problem in DOS. Do you still use DOS?
> > In which case you may want to know whether it wraps or just provides
> > access to only 137GB and errors out on access over 137GB.
> >
> That is not just a problem in DOS, until XP SP1, you still had LBA48 issues
But that was not related to the BIOS.
>
> > >
> > > Without a firmware update, do I just accept that I have 23GB I cannot
> > > access?
> >
> > Like that you don't kow about drive overlays.
> >
> > > Not a big issue, just rather annoying.
> > >
> > > Does anyone know of a reliable firmware update for the problem?
> >
> > There's people that produce patched versions of some BIOSes for a fee.
> >
> > >
> > > Michael
On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:05:07 -0700 (PDT), "mscotgrove@aol.com"
<mscotgrove@aol.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:
>The 80GB drive on Sony VGN-B3XP was about to die, so I purchased a new
>160GB drive. Cloned the old one, fitted new one and works fine except
>for the 137GB limit. The boot up BIOS says 137GB IDE for the drive.
>
>I contacted Sony and they said there was no BIOS firmware update to
>break the 137GB limit
>
>Without a firmware update, do I just accept that I have 23GB I cannot
>access? Not a big issue, just rather annoying.
>
>Does anyone know of a reliable firmware update for the problem?
>
>Michael
Could you partition and format the drive as two logical drives in a
48-bit LBA capable machine, and then install it in your VGN-B3XP
machine? Wouldn't this allow the BIOS and XP to boot from the first
partition (in 28-bit LBA mode), and wouldn't XP's drivers then take
over from the BIOS and provide 48-bit LBA access to both partitions???
- Franc Zabkar
--
Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
On Jul 25, 6:14*am, Franc Zabkar <fzab...@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:05:07 -0700 (PDT), "mscotgr...@aol.com"
> <mscotgr...@aol.com> put finger to keyboard and composed:
>
> >The 80GB drive on Sony VGN-B3XP was about to die, so I purchased a new
> >160GB drive. *Cloned the old one, fitted new one and works fine except
> >for the 137GB limit. *The boot up BIOS says 137GB IDE for the drive.
>
> >I contacted Sony and they said there was no BIOS firmware update to
> >break the 137GB limit
>
> >Without a firmware update, do I just accept that I have 23GB I cannot
> >access? *Not a big issue, just rather annoying.
>
> >Does anyone know of a reliable firmware update for the problem?
>
> >Michael
>
> Could you partition and format the drive as two logical drives in a
> 48-bit LBA capable machine, and then install it in your VGN-B3XP
> machine? Wouldn't this allow the BIOS and XP to boot from the first
> partition (in 28-bit LBA mode), and wouldn't XP's drivers then take
> over from the BIOS and provide 48-bit LBA access to both partitions???
>
> - Franc Zabkar
> --
> Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
I will try that - though couriously, the computer management program,
part of XP, only sees a 128GB drive with three partitions. The
original 2 making about 75GB, and the third or 50GB being currently
unallocated. If XP skips the BIOS I would expect to see the full 160
GB
Previously mscotgrove@aol.com <mscotgrove@aol.com> wrote:
> The 80GB drive on Sony VGN-B3XP was about to die, so I purchased a new
> 160GB drive. Cloned the old one, fitted new one and works fine except
> for the 137GB limit. The boot up BIOS says 137GB IDE for the drive.
> I contacted Sony and they said there was no BIOS firmware update to
> break the 137GB limit
> Without a firmware update, do I just accept that I have 23GB I cannot
> access? Not a big issue, just rather annoying.
> Does anyone know of a reliable firmware update for the problem?
> Michael
I would advise against trying that. Any solution you can come up
with can break your installation, possibly at inconvenient times
without much warning. If this were Linux, I would say you could
probably reassign the rest of the drive with the known-to-be
reliable lvm and turn it into another drive. But under XP, I
would say it is a pretty high risk.
mscotgrove@aol.com wrote in news:0a2de489-499b-4b31-887e-14be0b04b16a@x29g2000prd.googlegroups.com
> On Jul 25, 6:14 am, Franc Zabkar <fzab...@iinternode.on.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 , mscotgr...@aol.com mscotgr...@aol.com wrote:
> >
> > > The 80GB drive on Sony VGN-B3XP was about to die, so I purchased a new
> > > 160GB drive. Cloned the old one, fitted new one and works fine except
> > > for the 137GB limit. The boot up BIOS says 137GB IDE for the drive.
> >
> > > I contacted Sony and they said there was no BIOS firmware update to
> > > break the 137GB limit
> >
> > > Without a firmware update, do I just accept that I have 23GB I cannot
> > > access? Not a big issue, just rather annoying.
> >
> > > Does anyone know of a reliable firmware update for the problem?
> >
> > > Michael
> >
> > Could you partition and format the drive as two logical drives in a
> > 48-bit LBA capable machine, and then install it in your VGN-B3XP
> > machine? Wouldn't this allow the BIOS and XP to boot from the first
> > partition (in 28-bit LBA mode), and wouldn't XP's drivers then take
> > over from the BIOS and provide 48-bit LBA access to both partitions???
> >
> > - Franc Zabkar
> > --
> > Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.
>
> I will try that - though couriously, the computer management program,
> part of XP, only sees a 128GB drive with three partitions. The original
> 2 making about 75GB, and the third or 50GB being currently unallocated.
> If XP skips the BIOS I would expect to see the full 160 GB
For some odd reason the partitioning app included in windows still uses
BIOS routines. You need to use something else to work around that.
Like Franc said, use a different machine or use a partition app that
uses it's own 48-bit code or does not use BIOS to size the drive.
137GB limit on Laptop 
Linear Mode
