New Hard Drive not at the full capacity

G

Guest

Hi,
I intalled my new ATA HDD of 160 GB Capacity.When I installed WinXP I don't
know what I did and now its not showing the Full Capacity.When i check my C:
drive,it shows only 123GB.
I tried through "big_drive_enabler"but was not succesful and WinXP SP2 shows
the same 123 GB.
Can anybody please help me to solve my problem?
Also I need a link to get "How to..." for partioning my HDD.
Is Partition Magic is a good s/w and easy?

I would appreciate if anyone replies my questions.

Thanx.

ACE
 
R

R. C. White

Hi, Ace.

Is this new HDD your only HD? Is it your boot device? Or is it a secondary
drive?

You didn't tell us anything about your motherboard and BIOS. Are they too
old to support 48-bit addressing? Do you have the current BIOS for your
motherboard? You mentioned "big_drive_enabler". What is that? Did any
software come with the drive?

First, your hardware must support 48-bit LBA. If it does, and your BIOS is
updated and set properly in CMOS, then you should be able to see the full
160 GB on your drive. Motherboards newer than 2 years old should handle it
automatically.

You can use Partition Magic, but you don't need it. Disk Management is
built right into WinXP and is the best tool to use to create and delete
partitions, format them and assign "drive" letters. (It does other jobs,
too, such as manage "drive" letters for CD/DVD drives, USB "flash" drives,
etc.) And it has an excellent Help file that will explain many of the
"mysteries" of hard drives, partitions, logical drives and much more. Disk
Management first appeared in Windows 2000, nearly 6 years ago, but it was
hidden under so many layers of mouse-clicks that even many power users still
haven't found it. One quick way to get there is to type at the Run prompt:
diskmgmt.msc

If this is a clean install on a new HDD, just physically install the drive,
then boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and follow the prompts, including the early
one that offers to create and format partitions on your HDD. Let it handle
the System Partition and (if different) the Boot Volume. Then handle any
other partitioning/formatting chores from Disk Management after you get
WinXP up and running.

RC
 
A

Andy

Hi,
I intalled my new ATA HDD of 160 GB Capacity.When I installed WinXP I don't
know what I did and now its not showing the Full Capacity.When i check my C:
drive,it shows only 123GB.

The setup program of the initial release (prior to SP1) of Windows XP
only implements 28-bit LBA, which means it can only create a maximum
partition size of 131,000 MB.
I tried through "big_drive_enabler"but was not succesful and WinXP SP2 shows
the same 123 GB.

EnableBigLba is used only by Windows 2000 and ignored by Windows XP
Can anybody please help me to solve my problem?

Run Disk Management (right clock My Computer -> Manage -> Disk
Management) and create another partition with the unallocated disk
space above the 128GB partition.
 
G

Guest

HI,
check your Motherboard's Bios, Find its Model, visit the manufacturer
website, And upgrade your Bios.
Regards
 
G

Guest

Hi Everybody,
Thank you very much for your support.
My problem has been solved now by DISKMGMT.MSC
 

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