Ferrari 3400 and 137GB Limit – Dynamic Disk Overlay

The hard drive of my Ferrari 3400 is dying. Thanks to the advanced warning on Windows 7, I was able to replace it before it dies. I bought a big 250 GB Western Digital hard drive from Amazon.

The machine was recovered using the recovery CDs. After recovery, I found the hard drive is recognized as a 137GB hard drive. This is a limit imposed by the BIOS. You can check out this link if you want to know about this limitation. The chipset of Ferrari 3400 actually supports the larger hard drive. However, the BIOS was never updated for this feature.

In order to let the system see the full 250GB, you need to install a software called Dynamic Disk Overlay (DDO) from Ontrack. Note that DDO only supports Windows 98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. If you want to use Vista or Windows 7, you are out of luck.

To install Dynamic Disk Overlay on Western Digital hard drives, follow these steps.

1. Download the Data Lifeguard Tools for DOS (CD or floppy) from Western Digital.
2. Prepare the CD or floppy according to the instructions.
3. Boot the machine using the media created in the step 2.
4. Follow the instructions on setting up the hard drive. When you partition the drive, make sure there are not partitions larger than 137 GB. The hard drive will be prepared with Dynamic Disk Overlay.
5. Insert the installation CD or recovery CD to the machine and reboot.
6. Make sure the system boot to the hard drive first. When you see the banner of Dynamic Disk Overlay, press C to boot to the media you inserted in step 5.
7. Follow the instructions to finish your installation.

Now that you have DDO installed, if you want to boot the machine up using other media, you have to remember to boot the machine to the hard drive first. Otherwise, the internal hard drive might not be recognized by other OS.