Hello,

I have a Compaq Presario 2108CL laptop using Windows XP SP2. I have a 60GB IDE hard drive, and would like to upgrade to 160GB.

I was told by HP Support Chat that the max size hard drive for this model is 80GB.

I was told by a computer technician that with Windows Service Pack 2, there is no size limit on the drive.

I've been searching around on line and can't seem to get a consistent answer.

Can anyone clarify this for me please?

PS: HP told me the same thing about my desktop, and I am able to run a much larger drive than they told me.

Thanks...

Hard drive size limits - Notebook Forums and Laptop Discussion (http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=129421)

Thanks Cogs,

It's funny, but this is exactly the discussion I read right before my post. I mentioned it to HP and they just went on to insist that the laptop limit is 80GB.

Do you agree with Jalf, that there is no size limit with Service Pack 2? I'd hate to order a HD to find out who's right.

I have a 320gb ide hard drive, with winxp pro sp2. Never had problems. Do some online homework just to be sure, but probably not a problem with a 160.

Hey, Thanks Again...

If your file system is FAT32 then your hd limit is held at 127gb, to fix you would just have to reformat to NTFS, however this would cause a complete loss of all information on an existing drive, since your using a new drive :) you wouldn't have to worry about that. But when formatting the new drive make sure you select NTFS for your file system.

Just remember to keep the same rpm drive as the orignal, stepping up can cause overheating issues in laptops. Otherwise there is no limit per laptop.

How to convert a FAT volume or a FAT32 volume to NTFS

Note Although the chance of corruption or data loss during the conversion is minimal, we recommend that you perform a backup of the data on the volume that you want to convert before you start the conversion.

To convert an existing FAT or FAT32 volume to NTFS, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.

2. At the command prompt, type the following, where drive letter is the drive that you want to convert:
Convert drive letter: /fs:ntfs

For example, type the following command to convert drive E to NTFS:
Convert e: /fs:ntfs

Note If the operating system is on the drive that you are converting, you will be prompted to schedule the task when you restart the computer because the conversion cannot be completed while the operating system is running. When you are prompted, click YES.

3. When you receive the following message at the command prompt, type the volume label of the drive that you are converting, and then press ENTER:

The type of the file system is FAT.

Enter the current volume label for drive drive letter

4. When the conversion to NTFS is complete, you receive the following message at the command prompt:
Conversion complete

5. Quit the command prompt.

Now this is interesting. I had no idea. Thanks.

Question. On my desktop, I have 2 partitions on my hard drive. C is NTFS, and D is FAT32 (3.9GB). If the FAT32 partition is small, less than 127GB, can the NTFS partion be unlimited in size? (as it might apply to my son's laptop).

This seems to be the case on my old desktop which I upgraded from an 80GB drive to a 320GB drive. HP told me that my desktop was limited to 250GB. (my FAT32 partition is < 4GB)

I have a 60GB 4200rpm HD now. Since IDE drives are getting hard to find, I was planning to replace it with an 80GB 5400rpm IDE drive that I already have.

I didn't realize the higher rpm could cause overheating. Do you think this is too big a jump from 4200 to 5400 in terms of heat?

Thanks...

If you convert the FAT32 drive to NTFS, you would still be limited to it's actual size. So if it is a 4gb hard drive, it will still be 4gb hard drive.
2000/XP FAT32 Limit . . . www.allensmith.net (http://www.allensmith.net/Storage/HDDlimit/FAT32.htm)

But with that being said, converting to NTFS will improve overall performance even if it's not visible.

The faster rpm will just hard drive access time, but I personally can't comment about the overheating question in a laptop

5400 Will problay not give you any troubles, I was thinking more that you were possilby going to get a 7200 which runs a lot hotter than a 5400 let alone a 4200... but I've replced 4200 rpm drives with 5400 and haven't had problems,

If your going to replace you should go double now, they usulay aren't much more and actually cost comes down because higher capcity drives tend to cost less per gig as you get biger, I say unless your doubling the drive size you mise well not replace, from what I see currently its about 50$ for the 80 gigs, and about $10 more for a 120 which is double your current capcity, go for it :D