5 gig hd only reads as 2 gig after much grief and trying...

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I'm sorry to sound pathetic but I am at my wits end. I tried to install XP on a computer that had 98 on it with a 5.25 gig that worked fine with 5.25 gig of hard drive. I then upgraded to XP and formatted the drive with the 98 start disk. Then used XP fixmbr command along with fdisk to make a nw dos primary partition.... XP installed great but only shows 2 gig of space, and ran out of room while installing service pack #1. I have reformatted, fdisked, fixmbred till I got blisters. The bios only show it as a 2 gig drive also, one last point, my mom has the exact same system and our bios settings are identical and hers shows 5.25 gig on 98..... Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thank You, Bob
 
PlumbBob said:
I'm sorry to sound pathetic but I am at my wits end. I tried to
install XP on a computer that had 98 on it with a 5.25 gig that
worked fine with 5.25 gig of hard drive. I then upgraded to XP and
formatted the drive with the 98 start disk. Then used XP fixmbr
command along with fdisk to make a nw dos primary partition.... XP
installed great but only shows 2 gig of space, and ran out of room
while installing service pack #1. I have reformatted, fdisked,
fixmbred till I got blisters. The bios only show it as a 2 gig drive
also, one last point, my mom has the exact same system and our bios
settings are identical and hers shows 5.25 gig on 98..... Any help
would be greatly appreciated! Thank You, Bob
Click to expand...

If the BIOS sees it as 2GB and you have double checked the jumper settings
and tried entering the settings for the drive manually into the BIOS, then
you have a defective piece of hardware somewhere. Likely the drive, could
be the controller.

But if the BIOS doesn't see the full capacity, Windows XP never will.
 
PlumbBob said:
I'm sorry to sound pathetic but I am at my wits end. I tried to
install XP on a computer that had 98 on it with a 5.25 gig that
worked fine with 5.25 gig of hard drive. I then upgraded to XP and
formatted the drive with the 98 start disk. Then used XP fixmbr
command along with fdisk to make a nw dos primary partition.... XP
installed great but only shows 2 gig of space, and ran out of room
while installing service pack #1. I have reformatted, fdisked,
fixmbred till I got blisters. The bios only show it as a 2 gig drive
also, one last point, my mom has the exact same system and our bios
settings are identical and hers shows 5.25 gig on 98..... Any help
would be greatly appreciated! Thank You, Bob
Click to expand...

Please find your first post and read the replies - there are at least four.
Reposting is just sheer laziness!
 
Thanks for the spanking on the first post, If you would have noticed you were the only one, and you were quite helpless thank you. If I had the money for a larger drive I wouldn't be here asking for help making my equippment work. If you really feel that you helped me with your negative comments, you are wrong, and your reference to me being lazy was a joke. The only reply was your criticism which you would have noticed if perhaps you were not so lazy as to check. And to the second posting, I felt it better explained my trouble so I may get some help
Shenan Stanley, Thank you very much
Cerridwen, Thanks for absolutly nothing...
 
It is not a hardware problem, it is a hardware (BIOS) limitation. It would be my recommendation to not even try installing XP on the machine, stay with 98. Does the machine even meet the minimum requirements for XP?

It sounds like you've run into the 2 GB barrier. You can read about "The 2 GB BIOS Limit" here: http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/bioslim.htm scroll down to "The 2 GB BIOS" Limit. There are other limits listed as well.

Installing a larger HDD will not bypass that limitation. I had the same problem with a Compaq ProLineA, ther had to have 10 partitions on a 20 GB drive, even "enable large hard drive support" had no effect when installing 98SE on that machine, 98 would not run unless te

Have you run the compatibility wizard on the system to see what it says?

--
Just my 2¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
| Thanks for the spanking on the first post, If you would have noticed you were the only one, and you were quite helpless thank you. If I had the money for a larger drive I wouldn't be here asking for help making my equippment work. If you really feel that you helped me with your negative comments, you are wrong, and your reference to me being lazy was a joke. The only reply was your criticism which you would have noticed if perhaps you were not so lazy as to check. And to the second posting, I felt it better explained my trouble so I may get some help.
| Shenan Stanley, Thank you very much!
| Cerridwen, Thanks for absolutly nothing...
 
PlumbBob said:
Thanks for the spanking on the first post, If you would have noticed
you were the only one, and you were quite helpless thank you. If I
had the money for a larger drive I wouldn't be here asking for help
making my equippment work. If you really feel that you helped me
with your negative comments, you are wrong, and your reference to me
being lazy was a joke. The only reply was your criticism which you
would have noticed if perhaps you were not so lazy as to check. And
to the second posting, I felt it better explained my trouble so I may
get some help. Shenan Stanley, Thank you very much!
Cerridwen, Thanks for absolutly nothing...
Click to expand...

Erm, if you can afford £150 for XP, then I venture to suggest you can afford
£75 for a new hard drive. Someone's got their priorities wrong, methinks.
 
Thanks Martee... Hardware compatibility had no problem,
the weird thing is that it worked great before I formatted
the drive and ran fixmbr. Fujitsu, the drive mfg said
that is where the problem is, I have to do a clean wipe
including the boot sector... I will let you know the
results... Thank you for your help, Bob
-----Original Message-----
It is not a hardware problem, it is a hardware (BIOS)
Click to expand...
limitation. It would be my recommendation to not even try
installing XP on the machine, stay with 98. Does the
machine even meet the minimum requirements for XP?
It sounds like you've run into the 2 GB barrier. You can
Click to expand...
read about "The 2 GB BIOS Limit" here:
http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/J.Steunebrink/bioslim.htm
scroll down to "The 2 GB BIOS" Limit. There are other
limits listed as well.
Installing a larger HDD will not bypass that limitation.
Click to expand...
I had the same problem with a Compaq ProLineA, ther had to
have 10 partitions on a 20 GB drive, even "enable large
hard drive support" had no effect when installing 98SE on
that machine, 98 would not run unless te
Have you run the compatibility wizard on the system to see what it says?

--
Just my 2¢ worth
Jeff
__________in response to__________
"PlumbBob" <[email protected]> wrote in
Click to expand...
message (e-mail address removed)...
| Thanks for the spanking on the first post, If you would
Click to expand...
have noticed you were the only one, and you were quite
helpless thank you. If I had the money for a larger drive
I wouldn't be here asking for help making my equippment
work. If you really feel that you helped me with your
negative comments, you are wrong, and your reference to me
being lazy was a joke. The only reply was your criticism
which you would have noticed if perhaps you were not so
lazy as to check. And to the second posting, I felt it
better explained my trouble so I may get some help.
 
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