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Thread: Removable 160G HD

  1. #31
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    I don't think it really matters what filesystem you use if you stuff the whole 130gb full it would take 2 years to defrag the drive.
    When death sleeps it dreams of you...

  2. #32
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    haha, your right..

    I did think that linux wouldn't write to ntfs, thats why i wanted fat32 in the first place. I tried on Knoppix and it wouldn't write, but it could read. I haven't tried SuSE yet, and was planning for the worst by using fat32, thats all.

  3. #33
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Hmmmm,

    As for the drive utilisation I would say that you are OK up to 80%, once you hit 90% you can expect serious performance issues, and that goes for both NTFS and FAT32.

    Not only will you have problems with defragmentation, you will have problems with any decent sized database and your page file could be restricted. Basically, Windows maintenance tasks do require a reasonable amount of working space.

    IIRC the issue with Linux was writing to an NTFS partition, not reading it. I would have thought that was a thing of the past with the latest distros, but I could be wrong.

    I have normally associated FAT32 with supporting legacy applications running under 98/ME on a box that booted one of those and an NT based OS. In the past it was also used for Linux, where you wanted it and Linux to be able to write to the same partition.

    I have an updated service pack of Windows
    If that is XP SP2, I seem to recall that brings you up to automatic 48bit addressing support. So it sounds possible that your current version cannot understand a drive bigger than 137GB (128Gb in binary). That would give us 15 + 1 + 137 + the "missing" 7 = 160Gb?

    To support 48 bit addressing, your BIOS and your OS need to support it.


  4. #34
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    I do have SP2. I just updated my BIOS, and if it doesn't support it right now, I don't know how to get it to.

  5. #35
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Hi met~ ,

    I am not saying that this is related to your problem, only that it might be, because I have come across this before.

    This site: http://www.48bitlba.com/

    has some useful information, and even a tool that might help

    I would recommend that you try going back to my original suggestion and load Linux via the C:\ drive. The bootloader (Grub or whatever) will then ask which OS to load.

    What did the diagnostics tool say?
    How big is the drive in your BIOS?
    How big is the drive in Windows?

    What version of USB support does your machine have? and what version is the drive.

    At this point I would suggest formatting the drive as 100% NTFS and see if you can get your system to recognise it as a 160Gb. That will at least rule the hardware out of the equation?

    Sorry that this is taking so long..................I am afraid that "remote control" is not the best method for sorting these kind of problems and that is without taking into account our time zone differences?

    Just stick at it mate, and I am sure that we will get it sorted

  6. #36
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    I really appreciate it!

    I would recommend that you try going back to my original suggestion and load Linux via the C:\ drive. The bootloader (Grub or whatever) will then ask which OS to load.
    Wouldn't it just be easier if I could get it to work just by plugging it in? I set it in my BIOS to load up by the external first if it has an OS, so it should work.

    By BIOS has USB support, and It recognised the drive, but I couldn't check the ammount of space it has. The area in the BIOS where it displays the info only had 'primary IDE Master' which is my 80GB HD thats in my PC. I tried to set my external to everything, but it said nothing was installed. I know my BIOS has the support for USB, because in the startup order, where you can choose the order of the hard drives to boot from, it said '1600JB External'.

    My computer has USB 1.0 which makes that drive amazingly slow, so yea, im getting USB 2 in the near future.

    Edit: the diagnostics tool didn't have 45 minutes, it had 45 hours left! I forgot to post this earlier, This has to be because of the USB 1.0. So I didn't finish it .I ran the quick test and it said everything was alright.

  7. #37
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    I am running qtparted in knoppix, and it says my HD has 152628MB of space with 312581808 sectors. Thats not the right ammount, so I'm assuming its my BIOS that has a problem with the large size drive, unless linux has the problem with it.

  8. #38
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    Wouldn't it just be easier if I could get it to work just by plugging it in? I set it in my BIOS to load up by the external first if it has an OS, so it should work.
    NO. It proabably wouldn't. Stop asking for advice if you don't want it.
    When death sleeps it dreams of you...

  9. #39
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    my HD has 152628MB of space with 312581808 sectors. Thats not the right ammount
    Having checked that model of Western Digital drive I would say that it is correct. The drive has slightly more than 160Gb (manufacturer's rating). So, 160000 / 1.048576 gives 152588, which is close enough.

    On reflection, you need to install your boot loader onto the USB drive as well as the OS, and rely on the BIOS settings (boot order) to find it.

    I also believe that you may have to introduce a delay in the linux boot up routine to give the USB drive time to get ready to run.

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