windows xp only reads 120 gb hard drive as 32 gb hard drive

J

Jim

When the PC boots, does the startup screen (or BIOS) show the full 120GB?
It's not clear from your description whether the BIOS is seeing the full
120GB and you're only having a problem creating a partition >32GB (XP can't
create a FAT32 partition >32GB!), OR, whether your BIOS doesn't even see the
120GB, only 32GB. IOW, there's two issues here -- what the BIOS sees as the
HD capacity, and what the OS sees as partitions (logical divisions within
that capacity).

Jim
 
R

Ron Martell

is there an easy way to fix this ??? any help would be
appreciated!

Right click on My Computer and select Manage.
In the Computer Management window click on the Disk Management item in
the Storage section.

What does it show for the hard drive? (it will probably be reported as
Disk 0)

The leftmost item for the drive will show the total capacity of the
drive, as recognized by Windows. Beside that will be panels showing
the partition(s) that currently exist on the drive.

I suspect that it will show the drive as 128 gb and that there is an
existing 32 gb FAT32 partition plus 96 gb of unused space; but there
are several other possibilities depending on exactly what the
underlying problem actually is.

Please post the actual information displayed about the drive back here
and we will then be able to proceed to fix the problem

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
J

Jason Tsang

To the OP, make sure you've jumpered the hard drive correctly.
Some hard drives have jumpers that limit the capacity reported to 32 gigs
for compatibility reasons.
 

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