Xp won't partition all of my hard drive

[Guest]

When I use the XP cd partition and format my hard drive it won't partition
the whole drive. I have a 20 gig Seagate Barricuda. My bios recognizes the
drive correctly. I beleive XP sees the whole drive but it will only let me
partition and format 19992 mb of the drive. Once I set the 2 partitions I
want it will show the extra 7 mb as unpartitioned space but when I try to
partition that space I get a message saying that the space is too small. But
if I delete all partitions it goes back to only showing 19992 mb available to
format. What is the problem here? Why will it not allow me to use those
extra 7mb? Not a serious problem I know but I am still curious. Is there a
way to fix it?

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Kricket" <[email protected]>

| When I use the XP cd partition and format my hard drive it won't partition
| the whole drive. I have a 20 gig Seagate Barricuda. My bios recognizes the
| drive correctly. I beleive XP sees the whole drive but it will only let me
| partition and format 19992 mb of the drive. Once I set the 2 partitions I
| want it will show the extra 7 mb as unpartitioned space but when I try to
| partition that space I get a message saying that the space is too small. But
| if I delete all partitions it goes back to only showing 19992 mb available to
| format. What is the problem here? Why will it not allow me to use those
| extra 7mb? Not a serious problem I know but I am still curious. Is there a
| way to fix it?

Drives are sold as unformatted capacities. If you got 19.99GB out of 20GB all is Good !

 

[Asher_N]

From: "Kricket" <[email protected]>

| When I use the XP cd partition and format my hard drive it won't
| partition the whole drive. I have a 20 gig Seagate Barricuda. My
| bios recognizes the drive correctly. I beleive XP sees the whole
| drive but it will only let me partition and format 19992 mb of the
| drive. Once I set the 2 partitions I want it will show the extra 7
| mb as unpartitioned space but when I try to partition that space I
| get a message saying that the space is too small. But if I delete
| all partitions it goes back to only showing 19992 mb available to
| format. What is the problem here? Why will it not allow me to use
| those extra 7mb? Not a serious problem I know but I am still
| curious. Is there a way to fix it?

Drives are sold as unformatted capacities. If you got 19.99GB out of
20GB all is Good !

Not what the OP was reffereing to. I've seen it happen. On Install, you
see a single 20GB partition. Select it to install, perform the install.
What you end up with is a 19.92 GB part AND a 8MB partition.

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Asher_N" <[email protected]>


| Not what the OP was reffereing to. I've seen it happen. On Install, you
| see a single 20GB partition. Select it to install, perform the install.
| What you end up with is a 19.92 GB part AND a 8MB partition.

Maybe on a OEM supplied PC where the vendor creates a specialty partition. For example,
Dell may do this for the Dell Diagnostics. Symantec Ghost may do this for a Ghost Boot
Disk.

A new bare drive will not do this.

 

[Peter A. Stavrakoglou]

From: "Asher_N" <[email protected]>


| Not what the OP was reffereing to. I've seen it happen. On Install, you
| see a single 20GB partition. Select it to install, perform the install.
| What you end up with is a 19.92 GB part AND a 8MB partition.

Maybe on a OEM supplied PC where the vendor creates a specialty partition.
For example,
Dell may do this for the Dell Diagnostics. Symantec Ghost may do this for
a Ghost Boot
Disk.

A new bare drive will not do this.

Now that's strange, all the "bare" drives in the three desktops I've built
for my home network all have this 8 MB partition.

 

[Asher_N]

From: "Asher_N" <[email protected]>


| Not what the OP was reffereing to. I've seen it happen. On Install,
| you see a single 20GB partition. Select it to install, perform the
| install. What you end up with is a 19.92 GB part AND a 8MB partition.

Maybe on a OEM supplied PC where the vendor creates a specialty
partition. For example, Dell may do this for the Dell Diagnostics.
Symantec Ghost may do this for a Ghost Boot Disk.

A new bare drive will not do this.

A bare drive will do this. I've done a number of clean installs where
I've deleted all partitions until only one remains, selectedit, and ended
up with 2.

 

[Steve N.]

When I use the XP cd partition and format my hard drive it won't partition
the whole drive. I have a 20 gig Seagate Barricuda. My bios recognizes the
drive correctly. I beleive XP sees the whole drive but it will only let me
partition and format 19992 mb of the drive. Once I set the 2 partitions I
want it will show the extra 7 mb as unpartitioned space but when I try to
partition that space I get a message saying that the space is too small. But
if I delete all partitions it goes back to only showing 19992 mb available to
format. What is the problem here? Why will it not allow me to use those
extra 7mb? Not a serious problem I know but I am still curious. Is there a
way to fix it?

XP reserves more at least 1MB of disk space as unpartitioned to allow
for conversion to a dynamic disk. The smallest size that can be left
unpartitioned depends on the cluster sizes of the particular disk, in
your case that is around 7MB.

Steve

 

[Kerry Brown]

When I use the XP cd partition and format my hard drive it won't partition
the whole drive. I have a 20 gig Seagate Barricuda. My bios recognizes
the
drive correctly. I beleive XP sees the whole drive but it will only let
me
partition and format 19992 mb of the drive. Once I set the 2 partitions I
want it will show the extra 7 mb as unpartitioned space but when I try to
partition that space I get a message saying that the space is too small.
But
if I delete all partitions it goes back to only showing 19992 mb available
to
format. What is the problem here? Why will it not allow me to use those
extra 7mb? Not a serious problem I know but I am still curious. Is there
a
way to fix it?

This is normal. Windows XP reserves a small amount of space in case the
drive is converted to a dynamic disk in the future. The only way around it
is to use a third party tool to partition the hard drive before Windows is
installed.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q225822

Kerry

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "Asher_N" <[email protected]>


| A bare drive will do this. I've done a number of clean installs where
| I've deleted all partitions until only one remains, selectedit, and ended
| up with 2.

Well. Maybe I'm wrong based upon Steve N.'s post.

However what's 8MB out of 20GB or ,04% ?

Seems insignificant and trivial to me. It's like buying a car a quibbling over pennies.

 

[Bob I]

The reason is to plan for "Dynamic drives" conversion

Unpartitioned Space Remains When Creating a Partition During Setup
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;293281

 

[Bob I]

The reason is to plan for "Dynamic drives" conversion

Unpartitioned Space Remains When Creating a Partition During Setup
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;293281

 

[Steve N.]

From: "Asher_N" <[email protected]>


| A bare drive will do this. I've done a number of clean installs where
| I've deleted all partitions until only one remains, selectedit, and ended
| up with 2.

Well. Maybe I'm wrong based upon Steve N.'s post.

BTW, Win2K does it, too.

However what's 8MB out of 20GB or ,04% ?

Seems insignificant and trivial to me. It's like buying a car a quibbling over pennies.

Yeah, big deal.

Steve

 

[Plato]

When I use the XP cd partition and format my hard drive it won't partition
the whole drive. I have a 20 gig Seagate Barricuda. My bios recognizes the
drive correctly. I beleive XP sees the whole drive but it will only let me
partition and format 19992 mb of the drive. Once I set the 2 partitions I
want it will show the extra 7 mb as unpartitioned space but when I try to
partition that space I get a message saying that the space is too small. But
if I delete all partitions it goes back to only showing 19992 mb available to
format. What is the problem here? Why will it not allow me to use those
extra 7mb? Not a serious problem I know but I am still curious. Is there a
way to fix it?

Nothing to worry about.

 

[Lil' Dave]

Think its a bit humorous that MS acknowledges this as a partition. Then, at
the end of the article, calls it a drive. Guess they had to get their
sayspeak in there.

 

[Asher_N]

Yhanks for the info. You can learn something new everyday.

 

[Asher_N]

From: "Asher_N" <[email protected]>


| A bare drive will do this. I've done a number of clean installs where
| I've deleted all partitions until only one remains, selectedit, and
| ended up with 2.

Well. Maybe I'm wrong based upon Steve N.'s post.

However what's 8MB out of 20GB or ,04% ?

Seems insignificant and trivial to me. It's like buying a car a
quibbling over pennies.

It's not about the amount of space. I agree, it's trivial. It's good to
know why. Heck, the reason I never bothered finging out why IS because
it's only 8MB.

 

[Peter A. Stavrakoglou]

From: "Asher_N" <[email protected]>


| A bare drive will do this. I've done a number of clean installs where
| I've deleted all partitions until only one remains, selectedit, and
ended
| up with 2.

Well. Maybe I'm wrong based upon Steve N.'s post.

However what's 8MB out of 20GB or ,04% ?

Seems insignificant and trivial to me. It's like buying a car a quibbling
over pennies.

I never gave it much thought, 8MB out of 200GB on my drive is nothing to
even have to think about.

 

[Peter A. Stavrakoglou]

XP reserves more at least 1MB of disk space as unpartitioned to allow for
conversion to a dynamic disk. The smallest size that can be left
unpartitioned depends on the cluster sizes of the particular disk, in your
case that is around 7MB.

There you go, a clear and succinct explanation. Thanks.

 

[Steve N.]

There you go, a clear and succinct explanation. Thanks.

Thank you. And You're welcome.

Steve