250 gb drive problem in WinHIIP

[Kaverin]

I've got a 250gb Maxtor drive I'm trying to set up for my PS2 and I'm getting an odd problem. My system is set up for using 48bit LBA since the 2 main drives in my system are 250gb ones. When I attach the drive it shows up in Windows properly as being 233gb free, so I know that end of the system is still working properly. Then I disable it in the device manager and reenable it to make sure Windows isn't doing anything to it anymore. Now back in WinHIIP (1.7.6) I set it on 48bit HDLoader, but in the drive selection list, it only shows up as 128gb, and it only reports half of the cylinders it should. If I attempt to format it, my only options for the application dropdown are 28bit HDLoader and ToxicOS, so I can't pick the 48bit one. If I put this back in my PS2 anyway (V9 btw), uLaunchELF's HDD manager will properly see it as a 233gb, and formats it with no problem. If I load up the 48bit patched HD Loader and use it to format, it also shows as 233 when everything is complete, and it works fine. Even after that though if I reattach it to my PC, WinHIIP only shows it as a 128gb drive, and I can't select the 48bit HD Loader option in the formatting dialog. What I'm worried about is that if I start filling this thing up with WinHIIP showing it as 128 is that I'll get to that limit and then it will be stuck but only half full. This is the first time I've used a drive larger than 120 on my PS2 before so I haven't yet dealt with this 24/48 bit LBA issue before, but I have to be missing something here since it's not showing up right.

[loki7777]

What about the jumper? Did you put it - maybe you limit hdd capacity and it only affects pc not ps2?

[Kaverin]

It looks like there is a cap setting jumper on it, but the only jumper I use is the one to indicate it as being master when I attach it to the PS2, or removed to indicate it as the slave position in my PC. I found that the cable select setting works fine too, and I don't need to change it between PC and PS2, but just to be safe I stick with the direct master/slave settings.

Edit:
Just for the hell of it, I put the cap limit jumper on it, but then it shows up as a 30gb drive so that wasn't causing the initial problem. I had an idea to do a full NTFS format in Windows to make sure the full drive can be used, and then went back to WinHIIP to reformat it but it still shows as only 128gb. Then I tried reformatting it with the uLaunchELF (the full size shows again), and then making up 3 huge partitions, one of which would span the 137gb mark. If I try selecting the drive in WinHIIP after that, the program crashes after it scans some sectors. Same thing happens with a 48bit patched HDLoader formatting too. I have no clue what is wrong unless the drive itself is somehow damaged. Is there an alternative to WinHIIP for adding things to the PSFS in Windows?

Edit 2:
I think the drive itself really does have a problem. In DOS set up utilities they don't have a problem doing a quick format of the whole drive, but when I scan the disk to check for errors and such it hangs the scanner. Formatting in Windows sometimes fails about halfway through (not sure why the one full format worked earlier today, but they won't now). I've tried some other scanning utilities too and they usually report the drive as being 128gb too, so that's what's making me think it does have some physical damage in it. I'll just see if I can get another on eBay sometime, which is where I got all the others like it.

[alexo]

Try a low-level format. There are utilities to do that on the manufacturer's site.

[Fearless]

I have the same problem here... with a 250GB Seagate hard drive... the past weekend I was loading it up with a bunch of games... like 75 though... anyway... when I was in the middle of game 38 WinHIIP shows a message telling me there's no free space... I put the drive on the PS2 and all the games works great... then I checked the space and uLaunchELF shows more than 100GB of free space... since then I been trying to reformat the drive both ways, Pc and PS2 and is the same problem no matter what I do... only 128GB of free space available.

Is there a way to take full advantage of more than 128GB of space?

I have a 500GB and a 750GB hard drives that I was planing to use with my PS2 when I get enough games to load them... but if this can't be solve... then there's no point in use more than 128GB hard drives.

Any advice?

[TnA]

PC-Way:

1-Reformat to FAT32
2-Reformat with WinHIIP to PS2-APA/PFS (don't forget to go into WinHIIP's settings and set '48Bit')
3-Dump your games on it...

PS2-Way:

(0-Reformat in a PC to FAT32)
1-Reformat with uLE's HDD-Manager to PS2-APA/PFS. It should auto-chose 48-Bit and create the correct partitions...
2-Dump your games on it,...

[Fearless]

Thanks a lot TnA!

I will try it right now!

EDIT 1

Ok, I try the first method... using a pc... but winhiip keep telling me that there are problems formating the hard drive and then it offers me to fixed some problems, I allowed to do it but when I try to load the drive with games the transfer ends suddenly... so I will now try with the second method... lets see how it goes.

EDIT 2

First of all... sorry for the delay... been busy all the past days. Now a BIG THANKS to TnA! I used the 2nd method and it works flawlessly! Now I have loaded 72 games to my 250GB HDD and all of them run without any problem at all.

Thanks again for your help!