Old machine help

[mundingburra_mick]

I have an old p2 233mhz machine for my young son. The hard drive had died so we got a new 20gb drive. It only recognizes about 2gb of it for some reason?
It also has a pci modem (working) but wont let me set up an internet connection as it thinks it hasn't enough memory. From inetwiz it says Error 12009 and from internet connection in control panel it says there isn't enough memory, try closing programs. (none open task manager checked etc) I installed an extra 64mb stick giving it 192mb memory.
Do i own a lemon?

 

[[tab]]

Hello Mick, welcome to CoFo

You may need "drive overlay" software if your BIOS doesn't support more than 2GB...

 

[UrbanDragon]

I would have to agree with [tab] on this one. Older computers bios did not recognize hard drives larger than 2gig. Also what operating system do you currently have. If you are running windows 95 Release A using the old FAT table instead of the FAT32 you will see similar problems because Win95 did not support hard drives larger than 2gig(may have been 4gig). If you are running 95 i would suggest you get yourself a copy of win 98 because your 233mhz box can still handle the o/s with little to no difference in the performance.

 

[bachxuanguyen]

ya urban is right, when u check if it is NTFS FAT or NON, most refer NTFS or FAT (i forget, it's either one LOL)

 

[Praetor]

It only recognizes about 2gb of it for some reason?

That's the limitation of FAT16 ... consider upgrading to FAT32 or NTFS. FAT32 has a 4GB/partition limit while NTFS has a 127GB/partition limit. For NTFS support however you'll have to use either Windows2000, WindowsXP or Windows2003.

UrbanDragon does make a good point: older motherboards sometimes have to be "tricked' into making use of larger than expected harddrives. Most HDD OEMs have utilities for this kind of trickery (Maxtor's was called MaxBlast or something like that)