R30/R31 HD Size Limit

[Dale H. Cook]

The R30 and R31 apparently have a HD size limit of 128 gigabytes. Is this limit due to MB hardware or is it a BIOS limit?

[ZaZ]

The R30 and R31 apparently have a HD size limit of 128 gigabytes.

Where did you get that idea?

[rkawakami]

I believe what the OP may be referring to is the original Microsoft Windows XP disk size limitation: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303013
Or if running Windows 2000, SP3 is needed: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305098

One would need to be running those Service Packs to enable 48-bit logical block addressing to break the 137GB limitation. Of course, this is assuming that the R30 BIOS can handle 48-bit LBA. For that, the BIOS update revision history is mute on that point. There's no indication that it was originally designed in, or that an update took care of it. As I don't have an R30 to play around with, I can't say for sure.

ref: http://download.lenovo.com/ibmdl/pub/pc ... ud37ud.txt (R30 BIOS revision history)

edit: Hmm.. just realized that if the IDE controller can't handle it, then updating the BIOS with LBA capability isn't going to help. Off to find some info...

[ZaZ]

My recollection, which of course may be faulty cause I haven't seen a PIII laptop in years, is by 2000, which the R30 post dates, most manufacturers had fixed the 137GB limit and it should work with correct service pack. If not the OP could just make two smaller partitions and be under the limit.

[jronald]

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but why would you want a HDD larger than 137 gig on a PIII?

Ron

[Dale H. Cook]

I believe what the OP may be referring to is the original Microsoft Windows XP disk size limitation

edit: Hmm.. just realized that if the IDE controller can't handle it, then updating the BIOS with LBA capability isn't going to help. Off to find some info...

I have been on the road so I haven't checked to see which XP SP I had for the original installation I upgraded it to SP3 before my original post, and will have to see if I can repartion the HD with Partition Magic and get XP to recognize the large partition.

[Dale H. Cook]

If not the OP could just make two smaller partitions and be under the limit.

That doesn't really suit my needs - this is a backup laptop, and must, as closely as possible, match the partitioning of my main laptop and desktop for ease of synchronization.

[Dale H. Cook]

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but why would you want a HDD larger than 137 gig on a PIII?

As a backup laptop the drive configuration needs to mirror, as closely as feasible, my main laptop and desktop. The C: on both of those is 1 TB, with less than 800 GB free. The D: (which, in the main laptop, is a 1 TB drive in the ultrabay) can, for backup purposes, be run on the R31 in my USB housing as D: on that system, making all of the shortcuts, hyperlinks, etc., on the C: work properly even in backup use.

I have several hundred GB of reference materials that I need to have at my fingertips when working on the road, which I do at least two days each week. Many of those files are large - retrieving a 600 MB file stored in the cloud is not practical, even though I have 1.5 TB of cloud storage available. The fact that the R31 is a P3 does not matter, as it is fast enough to deal with large PDF documentation files or large Folio databases. By having a C: in the R31 that mirrors most of the C: on the main laptop (a T60) I will have a backup laptop in the field, needed because failure of the T60 would cripple my field work.

[ajkula66]

The largest PATA laptop drive is WD 320GB. That's as good as it will ever get for the main HD bay on any R3x unit.

[Dale H. Cook]

The largest PATA laptop drive is WD 320GB. That's as good as it will ever get for the main HD bay on any R3x unit.

The drive I put in the R31 is a WD3200BEVE. I don't need to have everything on the desktop and T60 C drives installed on the C: of the backup laptop, but I do need about 200 GB of it for field work.

[Dale H. Cook]

Since the HD now has XP Pro SP3 installed on it I installed Partition Magic, resized the partition to the maximum, and Windows is apparently now recognizing all 310+ GB of that partition. We'll see how it behaves when I start synchronizing files with the T60 and the occupied space gets above 137 GB.

[pianowizard]

Since the HD now has XP Pro SP3 installed on it I installed Partition Magic, resized the partition to the maximum, and Windows is apparently now recognizing all 310+ GB of that partition. We'll see how it behaves when I start synchronizing files with the T60 and the occupied space gets above 137 GB.

You should be fine. My 13-year-old Dell Inspiron 7500 (700MHz Pentium III) has two IDE hard drives in it, one 320GB and one 250GB, and both are nearly full. For a while it was running Windows 2000 SP4, which supported both drives after I added the "EnableBigLba" value to the registry, but the system blue-screened a few times. But it has been very stable after I upgraded to XP SP3, which supports >137GB drives even without editing the registry.