320gig hdd only showing 131gig

[Guest]

hi i just purchased a 320 gig hardrive Seagate

when i went to install xp and make a partition its only showing 131gig and
nothing else.

ANyone know why

 

[Rich Barry]

Ivan, go to Windows Update and download and install SP2. Once that's
done XP will recognize the rest of the hard drive
You can create other Partitions from the Unallocated Space. Just rt click
MyComputer>select Manage>Disk Management.
Rt click on the Unallocated Space and choose create Logical Drive.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

You have lost nothing. A 320 GB hard drive only has 312.5 GB as seen by
Windows. The reason is that HD manufacturers use a decimal system to count,
and Windows uses a binary system. In decimal, 1000 bytes is 1KB, 1000 KB is
a MB, etc. In Windows (and most software, if not all) 1024 bytes is a KB,
1024 KB = 1 MB, etc. Do the math. Both calculations yield the same number of
bytes.

PS -- Ignore Rich Barry's advice.

 

[Peter Foldes]

Gary

A 320 Gig drive showing only 131 gigs ??? I think you misread the OP's post a bit.

 

[Lil' Dave]

hi i just purchased a 320 gig hardrive Seagate

when i went to install xp and make a partition its only showing 131gig and
nothing else.

ANyone know why

Not familiar with your PC. You need both bios support, and XP SP1 or
greater to "see" a drive greater than 132GB for partitioning its entirety.

XP SP1 or SP2 can "see" partitions on an added hard drive that already exist
from another computer beyond 132GB. But, if your PC, for instance, didn't
have bios support for such a larger capacity hard drive. That's all you can
do with it is read it.
Dave

 

[Guest]

i started installing xp and when i got to the bit where i can create
partitions it said only 131 available and that was the only one.. once i
installed xp right clicked on c: only 131gig there

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

No kidding. Sheesh! Good thing I took a break when I did, <s>.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

Gary

A 320 Gig drive showing only 131 gigs ??? I think you misread the OP's post
a bit.

 

[Gary S. Terhune]

And... My apologies to Rich Barry.

--
Gary S. Terhune
MS-MVP Shell/User
www.grystmill.com

Gary

A 320 Gig drive showing only 131 gigs ??? I think you misread the OP's post
a bit.

 

[Paul Randall]

Hi, Ivan
As someone else posted, you may have one or two problems.
1. BIOS -- if your BIOS can't handle drives as large as 320 Gb, then you
have to do something to get around this problem. You might be able to
update your BIOS (my preference) or install a driver that may have been
included on a CD with your hard drive.
You can find out whether it is a BIOS problem by hitting some function key
(or maybe the escape key) during boot-up, and note the size of the hard
drive it sees.

2. The original WXP installation disk's partitioning software may not be
able to handle the 320 GB drive, so it reports 131 GB. If this is the case,
you might be stuck. The drive could be partitioned by third party software
freely availiable on the net, but I don't know whether the original WXP can
be safely installed and run to update itself to SP2 on a hard drive whose
size it does not recognise.

-Paul Randall

 

[Andy]

hi i just purchased a 320 gig hardrive Seagate

when i went to install xp and make a partition its only showing 131gig and
nothing else.

ANyone know why

The short answer is you're using the original release of Windows XP,
which supported only 28-bit LBA for disk access, limiting its disk
addressing to 131,000 MB. Slipstream your XP CD with SP2 to fix the
problem.

 

[Ken Blake]

hi i just purchased a 320 gig hardrive Seagate

when i went to install xp and make a partition its only showing 131gig and
nothing else.

ANyone know why

Yes.
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.