Incorrect free disc space

[Guest]

I have a 250GB disc (233GB partition). All the programs and data on it amount
to 90GB yet the free space is only shown as 36GB! instead of 160GB. The disc
defrag program shows the correct amount. What's wrong?



ABIT AN8 32X; 2GB Kingston dual channel ValueRam;
Opteron 165 @ 300MHz; BIOS 1.2
Win XP Home SP2, Norton Internet Security 2006
ABIT RX800 Pro VIO graphics, SOYO LCD monitor
250GB SATA 2 Seagate, 80GB SATA 2 Seagate
LG DVD-RW, LG CD-RW, Canon Pixma iP4200 printer,
Power Supply: XPower 520watt ATX2,
Router UTStarcom 3411, Benq scanner

 

[Vanguard]

I have a 250GB disc (233GB partition). All the programs and data on it
amount
to 90GB yet the free space is only shown as 36GB! instead of 160GB.
The disc
defrag program shows the correct amount. What's wrong?



ABIT AN8 32X; 2GB Kingston dual channel ValueRam;
Opteron 165 @ 300MHz; BIOS 1.2
Win XP Home SP2, Norton Internet Security 2006
ABIT RX800 Pro VIO graphics, SOYO LCD monitor
250GB SATA 2 Seagate, 80GB SATA 2 Seagate
LG DVD-RW, LG CD-RW, Canon Pixma iP4200 printer,
Power Supply: XPower 520watt ATX2,
Router UTStarcom 3411, Benq scanner

90GB + 36GB = 126GB decimal (135GB binary)

Sure sounds like you are close to the 137GB boundary limit of some older
BIOSes. That is, your BIOS cannot handle a partition larger than 137GB.
Although the problem is usually referred to as the 137GB barrier
problem, it is really a 128GB barrier problem. 137GB is the decimal
value of 128GB binary (128 x 1GB = 2^7 x 2^30 = 2^37 = 137,438,953,472 ~
137GB). The problem is that your BIOS or OS cannot support more than
28-bit addressing mode (where each addresses a sector which is 512
bytes, so 2^28 * 512 = 2^28 * 2^9 = 2^37 ~ 137GB).

Read the following:

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/capacity/137/os/winxp.html
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_winxp.html

There is mention of Seagate's DiscWizard in those articles but I don't
know if they cheat by usurping the MBA bootstrap program with a disk
overlay program to compensate for the inability of the BIOS to handle
drives larger than 137GB. You'd be better off seeing if a later BIOS
version gives you the support rather than getting stuck with having to
install a disk overlay manager as the MBR bootstrap program.

Have you checked for a later BIOS version from Abit? The latest version
is version 1.39
(http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/bios.php?categories=1&model=259)
but that is if you actually have the AN8 and not some AN8-<something>
model. Besides the BIOS update, if needed, you need to apply, at least,
SP-1 to Windows XP. Have you visited the Windows Update site? If not,
time to update (although I would recommend deselecting any update
related to WGA, at this time). Did you enable LBA mode in your BIOS on
the hard drive(s)?

Since the AN8 has SATA ports, and since the 137GB barrier problem
occurred before SATA drives were even available, I would think the AN8
with whatever version of BIOS that you have would have supported
partitions larger than 137GB. So it is more probable that you haven't
been updating your copy of Windows XP.

 

[Guest]

90GB + 36GB = 126GB decimal (135GB binary)

Sure sounds like you are close to the 137GB boundary limit of some older
BIOSes. That is, your BIOS cannot handle a partition larger than 137GB.
Although the problem is usually referred to as the 137GB barrier
problem, it is really a 128GB barrier problem. 137GB is the decimal
value of 128GB binary (128 x 1GB = 2^7 x 2^30 = 2^37 = 137,438,953,472 ~
137GB). The problem is that your BIOS or OS cannot support more than
28-bit addressing mode (where each addresses a sector which is 512
bytes, so 2^28 * 512 = 2^28 * 2^9 = 2^37 ~ 137GB).

Read the following:

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/capacity/137/os/winxp.html
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_winxp.html

There is mention of Seagate's DiscWizard in those articles but I don't
know if they cheat by usurping the MBA bootstrap program with a disk
overlay program to compensate for the inability of the BIOS to handle
drives larger than 137GB. You'd be better off seeing if a later BIOS
version gives you the support rather than getting stuck with having to
install a disk overlay manager as the MBR bootstrap program.

Have you checked for a later BIOS version from Abit? The latest version
is version 1.39
(http://www.abit-usa.com/products/mb/bios.php?categories=1&model=259)
but that is if you actually have the AN8 and not some AN8-<something>
model. Besides the BIOS update, if needed, you need to apply, at least,
SP-1 to Windows XP. Have you visited the Windows Update site? If not,
time to update (although I would recommend deselecting any update
related to WGA, at this time). Did you enable LBA mode in your BIOS on
the hard drive(s)?

Since the AN8 has SATA ports, and since the 137GB barrier problem
occurred before SATA drives were even available, I would think the AN8
with whatever version of BIOS that you have would have supported
partitions larger than 137GB. So it is more probable that you haven't
been updating your copy of Windows XP.

 

[Guest]

No! XP is absolutely up to date and the AN8 32X BIOS does not have a limit on
the disc size (which is shown correctly as 250GB). chkdsk/f says some free
space is listed as allocated but seems unable to correct it.

 

[Vanguard]

No! XP is absolutely up to date and the AN8 32X BIOS does not have a
limit on
the disc size (which is shown correctly as 250GB). chkdsk/f says some
free
space is listed as allocated but seems unable to correct it.

Could you copy and paste the output of CHKDSK to a post in this thread.
Also, have you tried using the /R switch when running CHKDSK (which may
require a reboot)?

Did you check for partitioning on the drive to see if there is a second
partition on that drive (which may not yet be formatted)? Use the Disk
Management applet (diskmgmt.msc) or run the following in a command shell
(I am assuming you have just the one hard drive):

diskpart
list disk (should show just the one drive as "Disk 0")
select disk 0
list partition (how many partitions are listed?)
select partition 1 (assuming you only have 1 partition)
detail partition (how big does it say is the partition)
exit (exit from diskpart)

"All the programs and data on it amount to 90GB". So how did you
measure the amount of allocated partition space? Where did you get that
info?

 

[Guest]

have you tried running chkdsk from safemode? while in normal mode try run >
cmd > cleanmgr