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ok so i went out and bought a 40gig maxtor hard drive for my archaic HP PAVILLION 8260 computer. I currently use win 95. I currently have a 3 gig HD runing my OS and other programs.

I can't make the computer recognize the other 38 gigs....

this computer is 4yrs old and the specs at hp.com state that it can read up to 8 gigs.....

is there anyways i can fix this or do i need to find a couple of smaller 8 gig drives to increase my hd capacity??

oh and when i look at the new drive it recognizes only 2 gigs...this after i reformated it again..is it possible to partition 5 times at 8 gigs a piece or is the drive just too big for me system....

again its a pavillion 8260 can/usa model

LAST EDITED ON Mar-19-02 AT 11:02 PM (EST)
 
When it recognizes only 2 gigs, when is this ... is it during the format procedure or during the Windows 95 install? According to Hps site http://www.hp.com/cposupport/personal_computing/support_doc/bph03925.html the maximum drive size is 8038 from the factory. If you go to http://www.hp.com/cposupport/swindexes/pv8260_swen.html you can download a BIOS upgrade and that should increase the amount of the new drive your bios recognizes. Remember there are still going to be limitations on how you partition your drive because of Windoze 95 and your system. Seeing that you got a new 40 gig drive maybe you can build you a new system, I'm sure your cd rom and floppy drive as well as monitor and keyboard can be salvaged.

Brian

You are probably using and older version (http://duxcw.com/digest/Howto/software/winver.htm) of Windows 95. If so, it uses FAT16. FAT = the file allocation table used by windows to allocate clusters (segments of the hard disk drive) to files. The maximum size of a FAT16 partition is 2 GBytes. FAT32 is available with Windows 95 OSR2 (OSR = OEM Service Release; OEM = Original Equipment Manufacturer--a company that builds computers, etc.: http://duxcw.com/faq/win/oem.htm) and higher versions of Windows 95, all versions of Windows 98 and Me, Windows 2000, and Windows XP. FAT32 supports partitions up to 8 terabytes (TB) (8000 GBytes), but there all kinds of limitations depending on the operating system. See http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q184006 for more info. Windows 2000 and XP (and NT) also support the NTFS file system, which in many respects is better than FAT32 and will accommodate the drive. See http://duxcw.com/faq/win/ntfs.htm. There are disk/BIOS overlay programs (EZ Drive, Disk Manger) available as downloads from hard disk manufactures and may have come with the drive on a floppy that can be used to work around the 8 gig limitation without upgrading the BIOS; However, a BIOS upgrade is more eloquent and makes the computer somewhat more convenient to use. If something goes wrong (e.g., a power outage) during while upgrading (flashing) a BIOS you could end-up with an unbootable motherboard. If that happens you may have to find someone with the equipment to flash the BIOS, obtain another BIOS, or buy a new motherboard. Most recent generic BIOS’s have an emergency recovery method using a floppy that can recover from such an event, in many cases. http://duxcw.com/dcforum/jar.htm Larry

thanks for the responses guyz...i have a quick question though regarding the win95 version i am using.....

i have this recovery disk that came with my puter which also had win95 on it...its version B....does this support fat16 or fat32?

i am not sure where to start... i looked up the bios upgrade at the hp site and it didn't say anything about making the drives larger or even stating anything about increasing the drive capabilities..

ok i double checked...its win 95 4.00.950 B

i think this uses fat32...

if so, how do i make this puter or bios recognize either all 40gigs or can i partition 5 , 8 gig drives

You are correct 4.00.950 B uses Fat 32, so that isn't a problem. What utility are you using to format your drive? To answer your question about partioning five 8 gig drives ... No it wouldn't work because your Bios would only recognize what it wanted to see. For Example if the maximum size your Bios would see is 10 gig, you could have 160gig but thats all it will see.

If you are using fdisk you must enable large disk support, it is the first question that asked. If you don't enable that the most you can get is 2 gig, because your computer came with a 4 of 8 gig drive I know it can recgonize at least that.

You might be able to use the 40 gig HDD, partitioned into several 4 or 8 gig partitions if you are able to find someone with a suitable computer and the knowledge to do it for you!
You could attach the drive as a slave to a computer capable of "seeing" 40 gig - and then partition it as required ie 4 or 8 gig, depending on what your bios can cope with.
When you return the drive to your computer, it should be able to "see" all the partitions.
I'm not completely sure - but I think it might work!

If the BIOS in fact does not support more than 8 Gig, upgrade it or go to http://www.maxtor.com/MaxtorHome.htm, download MaxBlast, and install the drive with it. Larry http://duxcw.com/dcforum/jar.htm

I had the exact same problem once. I partitioned and
formatted the drive using the Maxtor software. The only
problem then was that Windows98 would not install on the
40gig drive because it was a none-MSDOS partition. I bought
and installed a 1G drive, put the OS on it and now I can use
my entire 40G drive as storage.

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