half sized hard drive?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tippi
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Tippi

I bought a new Maxtor 250 G 18M cache for my Win XP Pro system as a
secondary drive. Connected and booted it up, go to XP Disc Management,
but it reports it as a 128 G disk with 8M memory. I formatted it in
NTFS and it works. But would like to know how I can get 250 G.
thanks in advance!
 
Tippi said:
I bought a new Maxtor 250 G 18M cache for my Win XP Pro system as a
secondary drive. Connected and booted it up, go to XP Disc Management,
but it reports it as a 128 G disk with 8M memory. I formatted it in
NTFS and it works. But would like to know how I can get 250 G.
thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

If you are not running at least SP1 on your windows install, it does
not understand drives larger than 128gig. Do you have SP1 and/or
SP2 installed ??

mikey
 
George Schloicka said:
I think you have to partition the drive because of XP size limitations.
Click to expand...
As mentioned, install Service Pack 2 for the larger drive and for increased
security.
 
Tippiwrote
I bought a new Maxtor 250 G 18M cache for my Win XP Pro system as
secondary drive. Connected and booted it up, go to XP Dis Management
but it reports it as a 128 G disk with 8M memory. I formatted it i
NTFS and it works. But would like to know how I can get 250 G
thanks in advance!The first thing that leaps out to me is 32 bi
Click to expand...
Logical Block Addressing (LBA) limitation. You didn't state wha
version of XP you are using, or your motherboard, and finally if yo
are using IDE or SATA (or SCSI?)

XP prior to SP1 only supports 32 bit LBA, which is limited to ~128 G
coincidentally. SP2 and SP1 both support 48 bit LBA which goes wa
beyond the 128 GB limit

The hardware could also be your problem. Older hardware may no
support 48 bit LBA, some may require a BIOS flash, and still other
do support it (newer stuff). If hardware is your problem and a BIO
flash won't help, you have one other recourse, buy a modern HD
controller card and use it. A friend of mine had the hardwar
limitation problem after buying a 200GB drive and he had to buy a ne
controller card to see it all

This sure sounds like your problem. Report the details I requeste
(OS version/MB/IDE or SATA) and we can confirm it

SG25
 
In addition to what others have mentioned - the need for SP1 or SP2 to be
installed, the system BIOS must also support 48-bit LBA in order to
recognize the full size of the drive.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Remember guys, it can be a hardware (motherboard chipset/BIOS
limitation as well (as Rick and myself mentioned earlier).

Tippi, I surely hope you're XP install is not pre-Service Pack 1.
That would definitely cause the problem you described, but SP1 (o
even better, SP2) employ some of microsoft's security fixes as well.

Again, Tippi, let us know more about your hardware, be it a Del
whatever or if it is more custom, let us know the motherboard/chipse
info

If this is a bit confusing, try this: Right click on "My Computer
(on your desktop), click "Properties," and give us some info from th
"System Properties" window. (This is where you can tell us wha
service pack your operating system is running)

From there, click on the "Hardware" tab, click the "Device Manager
button, and then click on the "+" sign next to IDE ATA/ATAP
controllers. Tell us what is listed there, as this is your har
drive's controller. From there we can tell you if your on-boar
controller supports those bigger drives. OK

SG25
 
Tippi said:
I bought a new Maxtor 250 G 18M cache for my Win XP Pro system as a
secondary drive. Connected and booted it up, go to XP Disc Management,
but it reports it as a 128 G disk with 8M memory. I formatted it in
NTFS and it works. But would like to know how I can get 250 G.
thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

IF using XP. You need SP1 and your motherboard bios to properly see a
larger than 128.
 
Thanks for all the notes. I *had* SP1, but due to a virus I had to do a
Windows "repair install", and I wasn't sure if I should reinstall SP1;
now it looks like I do. Will do that tonight.

The IDE controller lists "Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI contoller". The MB is
Asus A7N8X-E.
 
Tippi said:
I bought a new Maxtor 250 G 18M cache for my Win XP Pro system as a
secondary drive. Connected and booted it up, go to XP Disc Management,
but it reports it as a 128 G disk with 8M memory. I formatted it in
NTFS and it works. But would like to know how I can get 250 G.
thanks in advance!
Click to expand...

(AND FOLLOWING THE RESPONSES SHE REC'D RE HER QUERY, SHE ADDED...)
Tippi said:
Thanks for all the notes. I *had* SP1, but due to a virus I had to do a
Windows "repair install", and I wasn't sure if I should reinstall SP1;
now it looks like I do. Will do that tonight.

The IDE controller lists "Standard IDE ATA/ATAPI contoller". The MB is
Asus A7N8X-E.
Click to expand...


Tippi:
As you now know from the responses you've received, you need to install SP1
or SP2 before the system will recognize the full capacity of your 250 GB HD.
Your motherboard supports large capacity disks, i.e., drives > 137 GB (128
GB binary) so there's no problem there.

But understand that after you install SP1 as you say you're about to do,
while the system *will* recognize the full capacity of your drive (about 232
GB binary), the additional disk space above your present 128 GB will be
considered "unallocated space". It's disk space that you can use, but you
will have to create a partition and format that "unallocated space". You do
this through XP's Disk Management utility (Start > right-click My Computer >
Manage > Computer Management > Disk Management). The process is relatively
simple and hopefully you are already familiar with the DM utility. If not,
use the Help file available in Computer Management.

So you will have at a minimum, two partitions on your 250 GB HD - your
original one of 128 GB and the new one (or more than one if for some reason
you want to create more than one partition) that you create from that
"unallocated space".

BTW, is there any reason why you plan to install SP1 rather than SP2 on your
machine? Unless you have some valid reason for not doing so, it would be
wiser to install SP2.
Anna
 
Tippi, why don't you just go right to SP2? You can go direct from SP
to 2 without stopping at SP1

Hopefully this solves your problem. If it doesn't, you are down to
hardware limitation...Good luck
 
Well the reason I haven't installed SP2 is I heard some games are not
compatible with it. But that was quite a while ago and hopefully it's
all been sorted out. So thanks, will go to SP2.
 
Well, sorry to add to this... but I've been working for nearly 3 hours and
still can't seem to figure this out.

I have a similar problem... just installed a Western 250 gb drive and only
recognizing 137 gb

I have a Gateway computer that is a little over 3 years old. I'm running
Windows XP, Service Pack 2 and have atapi version 5.1.2600.2180

When I loaded the hard drive, the installation software asked if I wanted it
to reset the system so that it would recognize the additional hard drive
space. I selected "yes" but, obviously, it doesn't seem to have worked.

I've been to the Windows, Gateway and Western websites and though I find
information, nothing seems to be what I need. I'm hoping someone here might
have the magic key.

Thanks.
 
Alanvi said:
Well, sorry to add to this... but I've been working for nearly 3 hours and
still can't seem to figure this out.

I have a similar problem... just installed a Western 250 gb drive and only
recognizing 137 gb

I have a Gateway computer that is a little over 3 years old. I'm running
Windows XP, Service Pack 2 and have atapi version 5.1.2600.2180

When I loaded the hard drive, the installation software asked if I wanted
it
to reset the system so that it would recognize the additional hard drive
space. I selected "yes" but, obviously, it doesn't seem to have worked.

I've been to the Windows, Gateway and Western websites and though I find
information, nothing seems to be what I need. I'm hoping someone here
might
have the magic key.

Thanks.
Click to expand...


(NOTE: Alanvi is riding "piggyback" on an older posting by Tippi. I believe
Tippi's problem was solved through the installation of SP1 or SP2)

Alanvi:
Remember that in order for the system to recognize the full capacity of
large-drive disks, two basic requirements are necessary...
1. The motherboard's BIOS supports large-capacity disks. We'll assume yours
does. And,
2. SP1 and/or SP2 has been installed at the time the drive is installed. And
you say SP2 has been installed in your system.

I assume from your post that "the installation software" you used "When I
loaded the hard drive" was the WD installation software. Why don't you use
XP's Disk Management utility to partition & format that new drive? Do
this...

1. Access DM (Start > right-click My Computer > Manage > Computer Management
Disk Management) and delete the present partition of your WD 250 GB drive.
Click to expand...
(I'm assuming you do not have any data presently installed on that drive
since you haven't indicated such).
2. The full capacity of the disk should be recognized (approx. 232 GB).
Then, initialize (if necessary), partition & format the disk as you see fit.
Anna
 
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