Maxtor 160GB ATA IDE problem

[Howard]

I have a new 160GB Maxtor disk, my bios reports it as 137GB, presumably because of the LBA limitations. There isn't a bios upgrade for my K7AMA mobo. Windoze XP sees the full size of the disk and can partiton with NTFS and/or FAT32 but whatever I do with Knoppix (3.3 rel 2004-02-16) I can't seem to make it happy with my hard drive. Has anyone any suggestions please? I would ideally like to HD install and then setup my Alcatel Speedtouch330 DSL modem. I've been searching for help with both these problems, I've found a lot of suggestions to get the modem working but obviously I'd like to get the HDD problem sorted first. Any clues would be greatly appreciated, "H"

[Markus]

You might want to look at:
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm

Seems like the Maxtor 160 used to ship with a controller card for old systems, but nowadays they probably charge extra for it :(

[Howard]

You might want to look at:
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm

Seems like the Maxtor 160 used to ship with a controller card for old systems, but nowadays they probably charge extra for it :(

Thanks for the above, a very useful and interesting link.
I read what they have about size limitations and it lead me to Maxtors own info. on the topic. Basically it seems there are 3 solutions (unless Knoppix or Linux offers an alternative? PLEASE!).
1) Use WindozeXP with Maxtors "Big Drive Enabler" - yes this fixes the problem in Windoze - but not Knoppix.
2) Download and Install: The Intel Application Accelerator which provides 48-Bit LBA compliant ATA/ATAPI controller drivers (IntelATA.mpd) BUT only if you have an Intel chipset (guess what... mines ALI M1645!)
3) Buy an Ultra ATA adapter card OR a new mobo - if only I had the money, unfortunately I just spent my savings on a new 160Gb hard drive!

Maybe Knoppix3.4 with the latest Linux Kernel will provide the solution?

I wait in hope for a solution, meanwhile I can still use 128GiB or 137GB of my disk.

Regards "H"

P.S. Scan had a Highpoint Rocket Accelerator on their "Today Only" page at the weekend, so I dug deep and bought one (only £14.68 ) I now have a much faster and complete 160Gb+ disk. I've decide to use my original 45Gb disk just for Linux so I'm now going to set it up to dual-boot.