Format 320GB HDD????

[Guest]

Hi All,

I've just purchased a WD 320GB HDD and I'm trying to format and partition it
with XP Home Edition. The installation only recognises the drive as
131,000MB???????????? I borrowed a friends copy of XP Pro and that recognises
the full capacity of the drive ok. The BIOS also recognises the drives full
capacity. Perhaps I'm missing the obvious here ?????????

Formatting is in NTFS.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated as I'm about to throw the machine out
of the window!!!!!

Many thanks,

Baz

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I've just purchased a WD 320GB HDD and I'm trying to format and
partition it with XP Home Edition. The installation only recognises
the drive as 131,000MB???????????? I borrowed a friends copy of XP
Pro and that recognises the full capacity of the drive ok. The BIOS
also recognises the drives full capacity. Perhaps I'm missing the
obvious here ?????????

You need two things to support a drive that large:

1. A motherboard with a BIOS and controller that supports 48-bit LBA (or
alternatively, an add-in controller card that does).

2. At least SP1 of Windows XP.

Since your friend's copy of XP works on your machine, obviously you meet
criterion 1, but not 2.

Download SP2 here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...BE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en

or http://tinyurl.com/5bobl

Then slipstream it with your CD of Windows XP to make a new CD incorporating
SP2. Read here: See http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?t=7262
or http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/slipstream.htm

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Tnx Ken, I'll give this a try as well. I cant really understand why
with XP pro it works but with Home edition it doesn't?

Because the XP Professional CD you used includes either SP1or SP2 and the XP
Home CD does not.

Surly this
must mean that the MB and BIOS are ok? .......Baz

Yes, as I said.