spamlet wrote:
> "Paul" <nospam@needed.com> wrote in message
> news:htsduf$uk0$1@speranza.aioe.org...
>> spamlet wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Paul this is an amazing response and I thank you very much for finding
>>> all this information for me.
>>>
>>> The Seagate article seems to imply that if I have XP Pro or Home fully up
>>> to date then this capacity issue will not apply.
>>>
>>> However, you kindly pointed out the chipset on the laptop, which is
>>> mentioned as having an Intel Application Accelerator v2.3 update
>>> available as an alternative way of addressing the issue. Not sure
>>> whether this means I should try to obtain that as well as being up to
>>> date with XP?
>>>
>>>
>>> The GX270 as I recall looking inside has 40gig IDE drive and a space for
>>> a SATA. So I was hoping a swap would be quite straight forward aside
>>> from the alleged capacity issue?, but I have just read on another forum
>>> that to image a drive it needs to be IDE to IDE or SATA to SATA. So if I
>>> image my 40 gig drive onto a bigger SATA drive it wouldn't work. Is this
>>> true. It seems the more I look into this the more caveats I find!
>>>
>>> Anyhow, I can't thank you enough for taking so much trouble over your
>>> reply.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> S
>> For the GX270, that would depend to some extent on the modes supported
>> in the BIOS, for the ICH5 Southbridge SATA and IDE ports.
>>
>> Intel has a mode called "Compatible", and that makes a SATA
>> drive look identical to an IDE drive. Compatible allows the usage
>> of four of the potential six spots for drives. Your Dell may not
>> have implemented all six anyway, and only provided four places
>> for drives. If such is the case, the Compatible setting
>> may be available to you, and not upset anything. It might even
>> already be in Compatible mode, or not even bother to mention
>> it is using Compatible mode all the time. If the motherboard
>> has room to plug in six drives, then the settings in the BIOS
>> should be a bit more complicated.
>>
>> The second mode you can get on ICH5, is "Native". That moves the
>> interface for the drive, into the PCI address space. A slightly
>> different driver is used, but if you're already running a
>> recent Service Pack for WinXP, you might already be all set there.
>>
>> The beauty about trying these things, is "cloning" doesn't hurt
>> anything. You copy the entire old drive, to the new one. Disconnect
>> the old drive, for the boot attempt, then try to boot with the new
>> drive. If you got it wrong somehow, you can always go back to the
>> original drive, then ask around for suggestions. So it's not
>> like the attempt is destructive or anything. It's just like
>> making a backup.
>>
>> Intel chipsets can have other modes, with names like "AHCI" or
>> "RAID". Those may require pressing F6 and installing a driver
>> on a floppy, at the beginning of the Windows install. There are
>> sometimes recipes, for getting around the installation issue in
>> that case, but the procedures can be pretty complicated. As
>> far as I know, you shouldn't need any of that complication,
>> for your currently planned cloning attempts.
>>
>> In any case, as long as you can find an easy way to do the drive
>> copying, you should be all set. There has got to be at least
>> one USB to SATA/IDE adapter that isn't a dud, out there.
>>
>> I can't promise how the Inspiron BIOS is going to behave,
>> if you connect a much larger drive. If you don't really need
>> the space that badly, I'd just go with a 120GB sized one
>> (to stay under 137G
. Actually, the drive with the best
>> ratings, in the IDE category of 2.5" drives on Newegg, is
>> an 80GB one (5400 RPM). $50.
>>
>> http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136129
>>
>> Paul
>
> Right,
>
> I've got myself a WD 80gig drive for the laptop as you recommended, and got
> a usb enclosure to go with it.
> From the thread on fitting new drives, I got the address for the WD version
> of Acronis, and downloaded it, but it won't complete its install unless I
> have a WD drive fitted! The drive only shows as a generic USB drive in
> device manager, so I guess that is why WD think I don't have a WD drive
> fitted. Have I been sold a fake drive (It only shows as 76gig), or is this
> just WD being silly in assuming people will never install via usb?
>
> Cheers,
>
> S
OK, I took a bit of time to do some testing. I backed up my C: drive, tested
the WDC software, then restored C: so there is no junk left over.
First, I don't really find the entries in Device Manager to be that helpful.
I used a copy of Everest (storage entries), to try to get more info about
the controller on my USB to IDE enclosure. You can get a copy of the free
version of Everest here. Lavalys is still selling this program, and the
modern version has a lot more stuff in it, than this version does. But
this version is free.
http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html
*******
In Device Manager, I have one entry
USB Mass Storage Device
driver = usbstor.sys
In Everest, I see an entry in the storage section, for
Cypress AT2LP RC42 (that is a USB to IDE chip)
VID=04b4 PID=6830 Rev=0420
You can gets VID and PID values for USB devices here.
This allows you to double check the info. This list is
informally maintained, and there is no guarantee that
all USB devices ever made, are listed here. The official
list is kept private.
http://www.linux-usb.org/usb.ids
6830 CY7C68300A EZ-USB AT2 USB 2.0 to ATA/ATAPI
Now, under the "Disk Drives" section of my Device Manager, I have
this, and I suspect this is critical to my success.
WDC AC24 300L USB Device
The hard drive is actually a AC24300 4.3GB IDE hard drive from 1999.
It's the only WDC drive I own.
That is my hardware summary. The important part seems to be, my
USB to IDE controller is able to make a "Disk Drives" entry with
the word "WDC" in it appear. I don't know if your situation is
different or not.
*******
Now the software tests.
The Acronis for my drive, is the file "tih_s_e.exe" size 126,924,016 bytes.
http://download.wdc.com/atiwd/tih_s_e.exe
First, I tried to install it, with the USB-IDE enclosure turned off.
The installer refused, saying I had no Western Digital drive.
I switched on the drive, and this time, the Acronis installer
agreed to install the software. I didn't actually test the software,
because I believe you were getting stuck at the installation stage,
and that was enough testing for me. After a reboot, I was able to
start the Acronis program without a problem. But there didn't appear
to be anything worth testing in there, so I quit the program. At
least the program opened OK.
Next, I tested the DataLifeGuard software for Windows.
http://download.wdc.com/windlg/windlg_121.zip
That worked fine, and could see the USB based WDC drive. I
did a Quick Test (which scanned the entire drive in fact) and
my drive passed. It's only a 4.3GB drive, so no big deal.
Next, I tried the DataLifeGuard MSDOS version. Now, it isn't likely
that DOS would have a USB driver, and the WDC floppy didn't let me down.
http://support.wdc.com/download/dlg/DlgDiagv504f.zip
The floppy installed OK. I booted with the floppy, but the
executable on the floppy could not see a WDC drive.
Next, I booted the computer with my all-powerful Win98 prepared
MSDOS floppy. That floppy could actually read the 4GB FAT32 partition
on the USB based drive. So, seeing as I could see the files on the
drive, I tried running the executable on the other floppy (the floppy
built purely via the WDC download). The executable could be run from
the A
prompt no problem, but it still refused to see the drive.
It could be, the software was looking for I/O space IDE
interfaces, which were common on older motherboards. So the
test result was not particularly surprising. The software
appears to be produced by Knoll Ontrack, and WDC didn't write it.
So those are my results. The most important result, is my USB to
IDE enclosure with Cypress chip, was able to convince the Acronis
installer to work.
Try Everest, and see if the name of your drive is revealed or not.
You may also be able to determine the controller chip name and part
number.
HTH,
Paul
