Oh - for crying out loud !!! 120gig won't format . . .

FurryCurry · Post by **FurryCurry** » Fri Aug 15, 2003 3:04 pm

No, the 137 gig limit is a function of the amount of space that can be addressed by the ATA spec. (up to ATA100)
To address more than 137 Gb requires a motherboard with a controller or a PCI ATA133 card that meets the ATA133 spec, which is actually an unofficial extension of the ATA spec that includes support for 48 bit addressing, as Nick stated.
Serial ATA also supports supersized drives.

Also note that you need to have the service packs Nick noted installed for it to work in XP/2K.

IIRC, NTFS itself can support up to 4 terabytes of space.

On to the question at hand, a 2500 should be plenty fast enough not to have any lag issues playing demanding XviD or Divx files under 2K or XP, so I'd think it is most likely a codec problem or a soundcard driver problem.

I think that board you have has onboard sound. If it does, the first thing I'd suggest is removing your soundcard, and try out the onboard. The 2k/XP drivers for your soundcard might suck.

Then, get yourself a recent build of the Xvid codec from koepi or nic, Divx 5's latest version, and see how that works.

I'm now sold on XP as the best/most stable version of windows to use, though I was a suspicious 2K holdout for quite a while.

fonque · Post by **fonque** » Fri Aug 15, 2003 4:29 pm

i stand corrected

post-it · Post by **post-it** » Fri Aug 15, 2003 6:46 pm

paizuri wrote:If you bought the retail version of the hard disk (as opposed to an OEM version), it should've come with a disk from the manufacturer that has proprietary software which you can use to partition the drive to its full capacity.

bummer! . . are these Disc's available on-line . maybe ?
- Had WinXP loaded - hate it!
- had Win2k loaded - it actually seemed slower than ME T_T
- currently using WinME - responds toooooo ssssllllooooowwwww!
- tryed Win98se . . must have been designed around the same time as WinME

ummm . no; I'm not being old-fashioned here ( I can do soo much more under Win98 1st Edition than I can with the newer Operating Systems - not sure why !! )

FurryCurry · Post by **FurryCurry** » Fri Aug 15, 2003 7:45 pm

The diagnostic/utility software you need should be downloadable from the website of the manufacturer of your HD. usually, it comes as a file that makes a floppy disc image, as those programs almost always have to be run from a floppy you boot from.

If you really can't hang with 2K/XP, I firmly believe that 98se is the best of the old versions, but I'd say it's a mistake to go that retro at this point.

You gotta do what you gotta do.

dokidoki · Post by **dokidoki** » Fri Aug 15, 2003 8:52 pm

I had a similar problem. I believe I used Free FDISK.
http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/
Good luck.

post-it · Post by **post-it** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 5:16 pm

well - this was unexpected; got it to format all 122 gig's under Win98 1st Edition
and its a Speedy Demon ^_______^

It was not Win98 nor the Hard Drive - it was the Bios T_T

I retro-graded to an older version of the Bios for this Board and it works fine
-but even Winguard doesn't know why their standard Factory Bios should be
interfering with something as trivial as Win98's Fdisk !?

Now that I have the older Bios installed, I also loaded WinME and Win2k:
Win2k had a 44% Speed increase
WinME has a 63% Speed increase - I'll stick with ME for now ^_^

AbsoluteDestiny · Post by **AbsoluteDestiny** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 5:18 pm

exactly how are you measuring those speed increases????

44% of what?!

post-it · Post by **post-it** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 5:25 pm

I have an older LightWave Rendering program and it times the construction of its builds plus lets you know how well your computer did when it rendered the file.

The Models and Scene's take a lot of time to build and I have recorded these speeds in the Book that came with the program.

This test is fairly accurate for Processing and Hard Drive testing - well, to me it is 8)

AbsoluteDestiny · Post by **AbsoluteDestiny** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 5:27 pm

uhuh

(/me sticks to SiSoft Sandra)

post-it · Post by **post-it** » Sat Aug 30, 2003 5:40 pm

downloading SANDRA Standard 2002.68.97 from Cnet - what should I look for ?