Inspiron 8500 HDD size limit?

Wife has a dell inspiron 8500 laptop. A couple years ago I upgraded it a bit (2Gb ram, 128mb video card module, 80Gb HD) and it runs Windows 7 fine. The 80gb is getting full so I picked up a 250 WD drive for it.

BIOS only shows it as 137Gb. Some searching finds that the chipset only supports 120Gb drives or smaller. Will partitioning it as a couple 120Gb drives allow it to work OK or should I just try to find a 120Gb?

Sam

 

Nope, partitioning it into two 116Gb drives doesn't work. Just popped it into an external housing and backed up all her pics, movies, docs and music on it for now.
Have a Synology DS111 NAS coming next week anyway so I'll be able to pop a 2Tb drive in it and we can keep all her stuff on that and free up about 40Gb of space.

Sam

 

Once Windows starts it will see the whole drive. So using two partitions will work. The key thing to remember is if you are running XP that it must be on a partition less than 127GB or eventually it will overwrite itself at some point in the future. (Has something to do with that 137gb limit; I don't remember enough to explain it but it can happen.)

EDIT: It really should work within Windows. It is a BIOS limitation. I didn't see a BIOS update that would enhance its ability to see the whole drive but it isn't necessary once Windows starts.

One other edit: I'm not sure of the exact cut-off size for the XP partition but anything 120GB or below is safe. Also it may be XP with one of the service packs before the whole drive is seen.

 

Here is a thread, the last two posts say that it is possible and link to the LBA48 website which gives some more details. You might have to slipstream service pack 1 or 2 into an XP CD to get it installed if your CD doesn't have the service packs.

Or you could clone her entire old HD exactly sector by sector keeping the original partition size(s) (using ToDO backup or Macrium Reflect) to the new HD. Then you could expand the Windows partition to 120gb and create the second partition using partitioning software (or leave it at 80gb and then create a larger second partition.

 

I just reread this and realize you are running Win7. So you would have no problem with a fresh install on a 120gb partition. Or a clone as long as the OS partition remains 120gb or less. The problem occurs as the OS partition gets full and a system file inadvertently gets put outside the 120gb boundary and thus can't be accessed to fully load Windows. Keeping the OS partition under 120gb makes this impossible.