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Hard drive quiestions



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 22nd 07, 02:06 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
.D.E
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default Hard drive quiestions

I recently got a Dell Latitude CP for nothing. I has a IBM DTCA 24090 hard
drive which is 4 GB. I noticed that the drive had been partitioned into 2, 2
GB partitions. I fdisked the drive and fdisk shows that 3.9 GB are
available. However, when I format the drive, only 2 GB is formatted. I ran
an utility on the drive called slate which will remove all partitions. It
successfully removed the 1st partition but can't remove the 2nd one. It
stated that there was a read error on it. Is it possible to use a utility to
remove all of the partitions (1 &2) and get the total 4 gb back? It looks
like the drive is fine. I was able to format and read the 2nd partition
before I fdisked the drive.

Also I would like to upgrade the drive to a larger one. The BIOS is A12. Max
size of new hard drive? Suggestions? Is still possible to get drives for
this laptop?

Thanks.



--
_____________________________
Later.
Have a better one.
D.E.
To email me back, remove "forget.the.spam"


  #2  
Old January 22nd 07, 02:32 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
S.Lewis
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Posts: 2,079
Default Hard drive quiestions


".D.E" wrote in message
news:K6Ush.777688$R63.388138@pd7urf1no...
I recently got a Dell Latitude CP for nothing. I has a IBM DTCA 24090 hard
drive which is 4 GB. I noticed that the drive had been partitioned into 2,
2 GB partitions. I fdisked the drive and fdisk shows that 3.9 GB are
available. However, when I format the drive, only 2 GB is formatted. I ran
an utility on the drive called slate which will remove all partitions. It
successfully removed the 1st partition but can't remove the 2nd one. It
stated that there was a read error on it. Is it possible to use a utility
to remove all of the partitions (1 &2) and get the total 4 gb back? It
looks like the drive is fine. I was able to format and read the 2nd
partition before I fdisked the drive.

Also I would like to upgrade the drive to a larger one. The BIOS is A12.
Max size of new hard drive? Suggestions? Is still possible to get drives
for this laptop?

Thanks.



You should be able to delete both partitions using fdisk; the primary DOS
partition and the extended partition.

Delete both, recreate the primary partition (3.9gb) and format it.

You wouldn't happen to be attempting to install Windows 95 on the machine,
would you?


  #3  
Old January 22nd 07, 03:01 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
Tom Scales
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Posts: 3,502
Default Hard drive quiestions


"S.Lewis" wrote in message
...

".D.E" wrote in message
news:K6Ush.777688$R63.388138@pd7urf1no...
I recently got a Dell Latitude CP for nothing. I has a IBM DTCA 24090 hard
drive which is 4 GB. I noticed that the drive had been partitioned into 2,
2 GB partitions. I fdisked the drive and fdisk shows that 3.9 GB are
available. However, when I format the drive, only 2 GB is formatted. I ran
an utility on the drive called slate which will remove all partitions. It
successfully removed the 1st partition but can't remove the 2nd one. It
stated that there was a read error on it. Is it possible to use a utility
to remove all of the partitions (1 &2) and get the total 4 gb back? It
looks like the drive is fine. I was able to format and read the 2nd
partition before I fdisked the drive.

Also I would like to upgrade the drive to a larger one. The BIOS is A12.
Max size of new hard drive? Suggestions? Is still possible to get drives
for this laptop?

Thanks.



You should be able to delete both partitions using fdisk; the primary DOS
partition and the extended partition.

Delete both, recreate the primary partition (3.9gb) and format it.

You wouldn't happen to be attempting to install Windows 95 on the machine,
would you?



Sounds like regular FAT, not even FAT32. That's the limit of a FAT disk


  #4  
Old January 22nd 07, 03:30 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,418
Default Hard drive quiestions


..D.E wrote:
I recently got a Dell Latitude CP for nothing. I has a IBM DTCA 24090 hard
drive which is 4 GB. I noticed that the drive had been partitioned into 2, 2
GB partitions. I fdisked the drive and fdisk shows that 3.9 GB are
available. However, when I format the drive, only 2 GB is formatted. I ran
an utility on the drive called slate which will remove all partitions. It
successfully removed the 1st partition but can't remove the 2nd one. It
stated that there was a read error on it. Is it possible to use a utility to
remove all of the partitions (1 &2) and get the total 4 gb back? It looks
like the drive is fine. I was able to format and read the 2nd partition
before I fdisked the drive.

Also I would like to upgrade the drive to a larger one. The BIOS is A12. Max
size of new hard drive? Suggestions? Is still possible to get drives for
this laptop?


1) Hard drive limits are rarely published. Common ones: 8GB,
32GB,128GB, 137GB

2) If fdisk couldn't delete the partition because of a read error,
that's not good. Diagnose the hard drive with the manufacturer's tool.
Seatools from seagate will do in a pinch.

There are ways of nuking the drive regardless, though.

http://dban.sourceforge.net/


3) Yes. Secondhand.

You may run into issues with new hard drives, i would recommend a bios
update if you have to replace your hard drive with a new one.

Latest bios is a16

http://support.dell.com/support/down...6129&vercnt=12

a13
17. Fixed the issue in which the drive capacity for some large hard
disk drives would be incorrectly reported by the BIOS.

The run-me file it talks about is registry entries for win98 first
edition. it you're starting form scratch, you need not worry.

  #5  
Old January 22nd 07, 04:10 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
journey
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,489
Default Hard drive quiestions

On Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:01:07 -0500, "Tom Scales"
wrote:

Sounds like regular FAT, not even FAT32. That's the limit of a FAT disk


Yes -- that's the problem, it's regular FAT. I remember when my 4G
Pentium 133 was my "dream machine", and the FAT limit was 2G.
  #6  
Old January 24th 07, 06:15 AM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
.D.E.
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1
Default Hard drive quiestions

Thanks. I forgot to set the drive to use large files. A format later and I
have 4 gb.

Now to upgrade the drive. 40 gb, 60 gb possible? I recently flashed the bios
to A16. How large of a hard drive can I install?

Thanks.


".D.E" wrote in message
news:K6Ush.777688$R63.388138@pd7urf1no...
I recently got a Dell Latitude CP for nothing. I has a IBM DTCA 24090 hard
drive which is 4 GB. I noticed that the drive had been partitioned into 2,
2 GB partitions. I fdisked the drive and fdisk shows that 3.9 GB are
available. However, when I format the drive, only 2 GB is formatted. I ran
an utility on the drive called slate which will remove all partitions. It
successfully removed the 1st partition but can't remove the 2nd one. It
stated that there was a read error on it. Is it possible to use a utility
to remove all of the partitions (1 &2) and get the total 4 gb back? It
looks like the drive is fine. I was able to format and read the 2nd
partition before I fdisked the drive.

Also I would like to upgrade the drive to a larger one. The BIOS is A12.
Max size of new hard drive? Suggestions? Is still possible to get drives
for this laptop?

Thanks.



--
_____________________________
Later.
Have a better one.
D.E.
To email me back, remove "forget.the.spam"



  #7  
Old January 24th 07, 06:13 PM posted to alt.sys.pc-clone.dell
[email protected]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,418
Default Hard drive quiestions



On Jan 23, 9:15 pm, ".D.E."
wrote:
Thanks. I forgot to set the drive to use large files. A format later and I
have 4 gb.

Now to upgrade the drive. 40 gb, 60 gb possible? I recently flashed the bios
to A16. How large of a hard drive can I install?


Dell's documentation doesn't say.

Fwiw, one drive seller is selling 120GB drives for that unit.




Thanks.

".D.E" wrote in messagenews:K6Ush.777688$R63.388138@pd7urf1no...

I recently got a Dell Latitude CP for nothing. I has a IBM DTCA 24090 hard
drive which is 4 GB. I noticed that the drive had been partitioned into 2,
2 GB partitions. I fdisked the drive and fdisk shows that 3.9 GB are
available. However, when I format the drive, only 2 GB is formatted. I ran
an utility on the drive called slate which will remove all partitions. It
successfully removed the 1st partition but can't remove the 2nd one. It
stated that there was a read error on it. Is it possible to use a utility
to remove all of the partitions (1 &2) and get the total 4 gb back? It
looks like the drive is fine. I was able to format and read the 2nd
partition before I fdisked the drive.


Also I would like to upgrade the drive to a larger one. The BIOS is A12.
Max size of new hard drive? Suggestions? Is still possible to get drives
for this laptop?



http://www.drivesolutions.com/cgi-bi...d&itemid=dll79

They're charging too much for the small drives.


Thanks.


--
_____________________________
Later.
Have a better one.
D.E.
To email me back, remove "forget.the.spam"


 




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