[ The PC Guide | Systems and Components Reference Guide | Hard Disk Drives | Hard Disk BIOS and Capacity Factors | Hard Disk Size Barriers ]

The 6,322 Cylinder (3.04 GiB / 3.26 GB) Barrier

This is one of the most obscure size barriers around, apparently affecting only a small percentage of systems. It appears that on these units, the BIOS cannot handle hard disk geometry that has more than 6,322 cylinders. Attempting to set a higher cylinder value than 6,322 may cause the PC to hang. This typicall fixes capacity on such systems to about 3.04 GiB or 3.26 GiB (6322 cylinders * 16 heads * 63 sectors * 512 bytes).

Note: I have absolutely no idea what the significance of the "6,322" number is at all. It is not a "round number" in either decimal or binary!

Getting around this barrier is typically accomplished in a manner similar to how other BIOS barriers are tackled. I have not encountered this particular barrier myself on any of my systems.

Next: The Phoenix BIOS 4.03 / 4.04 Bug (3.05 GiB / 3.28 GB) Barrier

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