Acer Aspire 3002LC

[Lusakaman]

I have an Acer Aspire 3002LC which I have upraded with a 320 GB WDC HDD but XP only sees 127 GB. I believe it may be because the BIOS HDD limit is 137 GB

Does anybody know the Acer BIOS password to unlock the hidden area, or simply how I can get XP to see all of the 320 GB

So far I have tried the following:

1. updated the BIOS from 3A19 to 3A32
2. HDAT2 sees the hidden area but fails to unlock the password
3. Hitachi Feature Tool 2.12 does not work with the acer board but works with other motherboards
4. Windows "diskmgmt.msc only sees 127.99 GB

Help!

 

[WR2]

Hello Lusakaman;

What version of Windows XP are you using?

 

[WR2]

Your choices are Win XP / WinXP Service Pack 1 / WinXP SP2 / WinXP SP3

 

[Lusakaman]

Hello Lusakaman;

What version of Windows XP are you using?

XP pro with sp3 intalled

 

[Lusakaman]

WinXP SP3

 

[WR2]

Is your laptop actually asking you for a password just to access unlock option for the hidden area on the HDD?
Or is it more of a password to access the ALL the BIOS functions?


This might or might not apply to your situation now.
From Tom's Guide / Tech Support 137GB Limit On Large HD- How to Fix
See if that will help out.

 

[Lusakaman]

No. The BIOS does not ask for a password.
Also, in the BIOS ther's no option to enable/disable the hidden area.

You can see the hiddden area using third party s/w like HDAT2. On another board I am able to resize the HDD back to 320 GB permanently but on the Acer machine HDAT2 report that the hidden area is password locked so that after reboot the limit is re-inastated.

So in short I need either and an Acer BIOS password to use HDAT2 or some Acer "function/method" to access the Hidden Protected Area (HPA) inorder to disable/delete it.

I've asked Acer and their attitude is I am not even allowed to update the BIOS and at a cost - a lot more that the PC's worth- they will fix it for me.

 

[WR2]

on the Acer machine HDAT2 report that the hidden area is password locked

I don't think there is any password. HDAT2 is wrong about that, it just thinks that there is a password involved.

Older motherboards had IDE ATA 33/66 controllers that also had a 137GB limitation.
What motherboard/mainboard or chipset does that laptop have? You can use CPU-z to check.
You can also check Device Manager to see what IDE/ATA controllers are listed.

 

[Lusakaman]

I don't fully understand them but here are the details I have.

CPU: Mobile Sempron 2800+: Socket 754

Motherboard: Lugano M (Acer)
Chipset: North - SiS 760GX
South - SiS LPC Bridge
LPCIO - NS PC87591
BIOS: Acer - V3A32 (02/20/2006)

IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers
SiS 5513 IDE UDMA Controller
Primary IDE Channel Properties - Ultra DMA Mode 5
Secondary IDE Channel Properties - Ultra DMA Mode 2

Cheers