160 Gig HD formatted at 127Gig

[Mike Hyndman]

I've been given a 160GByte harddrive that was taken out of a PC whos BIOS
wouldn't support drives in excess of 127GByte formatted. The drive is empty
but formatted in NTFS and if I put this into a PC whose BIOS does support
drives in excess of 127 GByte I am unable to restore this drive to its
maximum size of 160GB. No matter what I do to it, formatting etc., it
remains at 127GB. There is only one partition on this drive and I would like
to keep it this way. PC on XPPro.

Any suggestions gratefully recieved

MH

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I've been given a 160GByte harddrive that was taken out of a PC whos
BIOS wouldn't support drives in excess of 127GByte formatted. The
drive is empty but formatted in NTFS and if I put this into a PC
whose BIOS does support drives in excess of 127 GByte I am unable to
restore this drive to its maximum size of 160GB. No matter what I do
to it, formatting etc., it remains at 127GB. There is only one
partition on this drive and I would like to keep it this way. PC on
XPPro.
Any suggestions gratefully recieved

Besides the BIOS supporting it, you also have to be running at least SP1 of
Windows XP. Apparently you are not..

 

[Jerry]

Because you need 48-bit LBA invoked. See KB article 303013

 

[Mike Hyndman]

Besides the BIOS supporting it, you also have to be running at least SP1
of Windows XP. Apparently you are not..

Ken,

Certainly am sir.

Mike H

 

[Mike Hyndman]

Jerry,

Read that and done it still only seeing 127 max.

Mike H

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I've been given a 160GByte harddrive that was taken out of a PC
whos BIOS wouldn't support drives in excess of 127GByte formatted.
The drive is empty but formatted in NTFS and if I put this into a
PC whose BIOS does support drives in excess of 127 GByte I am
unable to restore this drive to its maximum size of 160GB. No
matter what I do to it, formatting etc., it remains at 127GB. There
is only one partition on this drive and I would like to keep it
this way. PC on XPPro.

What is the make/model number of the drive in question?

 

[Mike Hyndman]

What is the make/model number of the drive in question?

Shenan

HaHa I know what you are thinking ;-) Its a Samsung 1604N
The PC I have tried to reformat this drive to max on has 200Gig HD on board,
so obviously it should have no trouble with this one.

Many thanks

Mike H

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken,

Certainly am sir.

OK. You said you formatted it. Did you first repartition it?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

What is the make/model number of the drive in question?

HaHa I know what you are thinking ;-) Its a Samsung 1604N
The PC I have tried to reformat this drive to max on has 200Gig HD
on board, so obviously it should have no trouble with this one.

And the full size is recognized in the BIOS?
It has been re-partitioned? (Not formatted, mind you - partitioned.)

 

[Andy]

Run Disk Management. Delete the partition and create a new one
encompassing the entire disk.

 

[Mike Hyndman]

OK. You said you formatted it. Did you first repartition it?

Ken,

I only had the option to partition at the 127 GB capacity, not 160GB.

Regards
Mike H

 

[Mike Hyndman]

And the full size is recognized in the BIOS?

Both PC's BIOS saw it as a 160 GB drive.

It has been re-partitioned? (Not formatted, mind you - partitioned.)

Only get the option to repartition from 127 GB not 160GB.

'Tis a mystery.

Regards

Mike H

 

[Mike Hyndman]

Run Disk Management. Delete the partition and create a new one
encompassing the entire disk.

Andy,

Will do.

Regards
Mike H

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken,

I only had the option to partition at the 127 GB capacity, not 160GB.

That sure sound to me like either the BIOS doesn't have support for 48-bit
LBA or you have a pre-SP1 version of Windows XP. But since you say that
neither of those is true, I don't have any other suggestions.

 

[Mike Hyndman]

That sure sound to me like either the BIOS doesn't have support for 48-bit

LBA or you have a pre-SP1 version of Windows XP. But since you say that
neither of those is true, I don't have any other suggestions.

Ken,

I agree regarding the original PC's BIOS, yet it did say it was a 160 GB
Samsung when booting up (just reading the drive label?) but the PC I am
trying to recovery it on has a 200GB HD which is seen correctly, both by the
BIOS and OS. Both PC's are SP2 also.

Many thanks anyway.

Mike H.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken,

I agree regarding the original PC's BIOS, yet it did say it was a 160
GB Samsung when booting up (just reading the drive label?) but the PC
I am trying to recovery it on has a 200GB HD which is seen correctly,
both by the BIOS and OS. Both PC's are SP2 also.

If a 200GB drive is seen correctly, my suspicions that it's either the BIOS
or the Windows version is clearly wrong.

Many thanks anyway.

You're welcome. Sorry I can't be more help.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken,

I agree regarding the original PC's BIOS, yet it did say it was a 160
GB Samsung when booting up (just reading the drive label?) but the PC
I am trying to recovery it on has a 200GB HD which is seen correctly,
both by the BIOS and OS. Both PC's are SP2 also.

Many thanks anyway.

One more thought. It's probably unlikely, but worth looking into just in
case.

Is it possible that the 200GB drive is connected to an add-in IDE card with
48-bit LBA support, but you're connecting the 160 directly to the
motherboard where there's no 48-bit LBA support?

 

[Mike Hyndman]

If a 200GB drive is seen correctly, my suspicions that it's either the

BIOS or the Windows version is clearly wrong.

Ken,

Why should this be so if it sees the drive correctly?

Mike H

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Mike

Ken made another suggestion which I think you haven't noticed.

One more thought. It's probably unlikely, but worth looking into just in
case.

Is it possible that the 200GB drive is connected to an add-in IDE card with
48-bit LBA support, but you're connecting the 160 directly to the
motherboard where there's no 48-bit LBA support?

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken,

Why should this be so if it sees the drive correctly?

If both the BIOS and Windows see a 200GB drive correctly, they will also see
a 160GB drive correctly.