120GB harddrive seen as 30GB PLEASE HELP

[john]

ive just been upgrading my PC with a new hard drive. ive
installed an 80gb drive as a boot drive and a 120gb drive
as a data drive. windows installed perfectly but there
was an old install of windows on the 120 and after trying
to format the drive windows only formate 30gb of the
drive? ive built my pc from the ground up a few years ago
and have upgraded parts every year and every time any
installation has gone perfectly. the installation is
correct as ive had 2 hard drives for years. the 80's set
to master and the 120 to slave and everything but it
doesnt let me format the full 120 gigabytes?
ive never had this problem before so does ANYONE have any
idea whats happened? i really need your help as im
stumped i cant think of anything else to do? thanks all

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314463&Product=winxp

How to Partition and Format a Hard Disk in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;313348&Product=winxp

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

-----------------------------------------------------------------------


| ive just been upgrading my PC with a new hard drive. ive
| installed an 80gb drive as a boot drive and a 120gb drive
| as a data drive. windows installed perfectly but there
| was an old install of windows on the 120 and after trying
| to format the drive windows only formate 30gb of the
| drive? ive built my pc from the ground up a few years ago
| and have upgraded parts every year and every time any
| installation has gone perfectly. the installation is
| correct as ive had 2 hard drives for years. the 80's set
| to master and the 120 to slave and everything but it
| doesnt let me format the full 120 gigabytes?
| ive never had this problem before so does ANYONE have any
| idea whats happened? i really need your help as im
| stumped i cant think of anything else to do? thanks all

 

[Jason Tsang]

If you format it in Windows XP, then the max you'll ever get using FAT32 is
32 gigs.

Carey's provided links to those details...

Now, if you are trying to format it as NTFS, and it is still showing up as
32 gigs, then you have another problem.

Make sure your hard drive controller supports larger sized hard drives (>32
gigs).
Make sure you hard drive is jumpered properly (many hard drives have a
jumper configuration that limits the hard drive reported size to 32 gigs for
compatibility reasons (for hard drive controllers that don't support >32 gig
hard drives)

 

[D.Currie]

ive just been upgrading my PC with a new hard drive. ive
installed an 80gb drive as a boot drive and a 120gb drive
as a data drive. windows installed perfectly but there
was an old install of windows on the 120 and after trying
to format the drive windows only formate 30gb of the
drive? ive built my pc from the ground up a few years ago
and have upgraded parts every year and every time any
installation has gone perfectly. the installation is
correct as ive had 2 hard drives for years. the 80's set
to master and the 120 to slave and everything but it
doesnt let me format the full 120 gigabytes?
ive never had this problem before so does ANYONE have any
idea whats happened? i really need your help as im
stumped i cant think of anything else to do? thanks all

If all you're doing is formatting, keep in mind that it will only format
whatever you've got partitioned. It seems that you have created a 30 GB
partition, and the rest isn't being used.

Or...some hard drives have a "compatibility jumper" that allows older
motherboards to recognize them as a smaller size. You might have
inadvertently set that jumper, so the computer is only seeing it as a 30 Gb
drive.

 

[Guest]

Thats what i dont understand. ive had the 120 in my
computer working fine and at full spec since october. it
was set to master and with a smaller 40 gb set to slave
both formated under ntfs. its still formated under ntfs
and ive had drives bigger than 30 gb for years with xp,
ill check the jumper settings on the drive again as it
only happened when i set the drive to slave?

 

[D.Currie]

Thats what i dont understand. ive had the 120 in my
computer working fine and at full spec since october. it
was set to master and with a smaller 40 gb set to slave
both formated under ntfs. its still formated under ntfs
and ive had drives bigger than 30 gb for years with xp,
ill check the jumper settings on the drive again as it
only happened when i set the drive to slave?

You might have moved the compatibility jumper in error. Otherwise, if it was
partitioned as 120 GB before, it should be the same now.

The only other thought is that you ever used any partitioning software, like
partition magic, or you used any drive utilities, that could mess up the way
XP views the drive.

What does disk management in XP say? It should give you the size of the
drive, size of partitions, empty space, etc.