Old system with 28Bit lba with new drive

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

I am putting in a new WD Blue 320gb HD to replace a 10 year old HD. This old system still does what it needs to do so I don’t want to replace the whole system. Are there any jumper settings to limit the capacity to 137GB? Can I just format it at this capacity and forget about the remaining space safely? It just has to work for now.

Thanks

2

Provided that the firmware supports the HPA (Host Protected Area) feature set, you could use a tool such as HDAT2 to cut the capacity of your drive. You would limit its capacity to the maximum LBA that can be addressed with 28 bits. This change is not permanent, so you can undo it at a later time.

The procedure for creating a HPA is explained on page 5 of the HDAT2 Cook Book.

HDAT2/CBL Hard Disk Repair Utility:
http://www.hdat2.com
http://www.hdat2.com/hdat2_faq.html
http://www.hdat2.com/files/cookbook_v11.pdf