first gen dell xps(notebook)

Hi i have a problem with my dell xps(notebook)
I bought my dell xps in 2006 and i still enjoy it with older games.
(i have a new notebook with a 9600gt)
I want to upgrade the old dell hd (wich was 60gb) with a 160gb samsung hd
And the dell bios only sees 137gb.
I wanted to update my bios to see if i can use all the 160gb(but my battery doesn't charge anymore)
so here are my questions
.-Can i update without the battery?
.- is there a way around this?
.-is there support for 48bit lba addressing in this laptop?
.-i hope i don't get the same problem as the old xbox had with hd's bigger than 137gb.
please help!

 

I don't think there is a way to update the BIOS without a battery as sudden loss of power could brick the motherboard during the BIOS update.

However, the hard drive size of 137GB seems normal enough. There is always a difference in size between the manufacturers' hard drive capacity and what is seen by the OS or BIOS.

 

that same question is in the May 2009 issue of maximumPC magazine. they say its a motherboard or OS limitation and you need at least XP sp1? (if im reading that correctly) and to update your XP to the latest service pack. also they recommend installing the latest motherboard chipset. hopefully that will fix the 48bit lba issue.

as for updating, why not plug to laptop's AC charger into a UPS while doing the update!

 

It's an actual fail-safe in the software. It will not run unless it detects both an AC power source and the battery plugged in.

 

The 137 seems right to me as well. My 320 gig only shows up as 300 when I format it.

 

137 is still lower than it should be. He should be getting somewhere around 148GB.
Conversion of GiB to GB is usually ~93%. e.g. your 300GB drive * 0.93 = 297GB. Or 160GB * 0.93 = 148.8GB.
I don't have a solution, though S. Prime is right about Win XP having a 137GB limit before SP1. However that shouldn't affect the BIOS, so it's probably a hardware limitation (and maybe fixable with a BIOS update).

 

Hey.... nice to see someone rocking the original XPS notebook... I had one that I sold to get my M1730, and it was still playing most 'modern' stuff fairly well before I upgraded.

I second getting your copy of XP up to date; at least to SP2. IIRC, that's when the 48-bit LBA limitations were removed... although I find it a little funny that your BIOS isn't recognizing the full capacity of the drive. I'd also try running a BIOS update just in case.

I don't think Dell's BIOS updates are as stringent as IBM/Lenovo ones are; at least on the Thinkpads I've done updates on they require a fully charged battery to give it a go. You should be safe if you're plugged in, but make very sure that you're not going to come unplugged during the update as losing power in the middle of a BIOS flash could very well bork your motherboard.

Hopefully that fixes your problem; I haven't had any direct experience with the issue as the largest drive I've used in my Gen 1 was a 120GB that I ended up swapping out for a 7200RPM 100GB unit.

 

thanks to all for all your answers.
Yes the limitation comes from the bios, not my os(because there's no os on the hd.)
After the format i will install xpsp3(wich was the one i was using on the 60gb hd)
i'm sure it's a limitation with the bios.
yes, my battery is dead and i don't want to buy another one(because i'm saving to buy another laptop)
And i wanted to see if the bios update would give me the remaining gb.
anyway, Thanks to all of you! for your help.
BTW do you know if this notebook supports 2gb of ram?(i have always used 1gb)

 

Yes, the 1st-gen XPS supports up to 2GB of RAM. However, from what I remember two 1GB sticks are very expensive... hovering around the $250 range. If you're looking to move toward a newer, more powerful notebook it's definitely not worth the upgrade, in my opinion.

 

ram prices have come way down. this is the 2gig set I bought for my M170:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231118

$25 now.