Using entier hard drive space

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Guest

Hi all

i recently bought a 260 gig hard drive wich is installed already but i can
only use 137gig of it ,I checked the knowledge article Q303013 and my
computer seems to meet all the requierments .Now heres my question will i
have to format my hard drive again after doing all the steps in order to use
the whole 260 gig ?If no one here can help me could you please direct me to a
forum wich might be able to .Thanks in advance

Wayne
 
What brand of Drive? The drive utility (widows version) should be able tofix XP
Svc Pack 2 registry so it can use the entire drive. Then go to Administrative
Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management and expand the partition.

Hi all

i recently bought a 260 gig hard drive wich is installed already but i can
only use 137gig of it ,I checked the knowledge article Q303013 and my
computer seems to meet all the requierments .Now heres my question will i
have to format my hard drive again after doing all the steps in order touse
the whole 260 gig ?If no one here can help me could you please direct meto a
forum wich might be able to .Thanks in advance

Wayne
Click to expand...
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<[___\_\_-----<------------------<No Spam Please><
| o'
 
Wayne said:
i recently bought a 260 gig hard drive wich is installed already but
i can only use 137gig of it ,I checked the knowledge article Q303013
and my computer seems to meet all the requierments .
Click to expand...


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.

Regardless of what you checked, almost certainly you don't meet at least one
of those two requirements.

Now heres my
question will i have to format my hard drive again after doing all
the steps in order to use the whole 260 gig ?
Click to expand...


No. Reformatting will not help you.
 
Thanks for your answers .{john} my hard drive is a western digital WD2500JB
if that helps any . [Ken] yeah i did not see the BIOS requierment is there
anyway that i could see if my motherboard supports 48bit LBA .Thanks again
 
Boot to the Bios.
What does it say about your hard drive?
--
Ronald Sommer

: Thanks for your answers .{john} my hard drive is a western digital
WD2500JB
: if that helps any . [Ken] yeah i did not see the BIOS requierment is there
: anyway that i could see if my motherboard supports 48bit LBA .Thanks again
:
: "Wayne" wrote:
:
: > Hi all
: >
: > i recently bought a 260 gig hard drive wich is installed already but i
can
: > only use 137gig of it ,I checked the knowledge article Q303013 and my
: > computer seems to meet all the requierments .Now heres my question will
i
: > have to format my hard drive again after doing all the steps in order to
use
: > the whole 260 gig ?If no one here can help me could you please direct me
to a
: > forum wich might be able to .Thanks in advance
: >
: > Wayne
 
Wayne said:
Thanks for your answers .{john} my hard drive is a western digital
WD2500JB
if that helps any . [Ken] yeah i did not see the BIOS requierment is there
anyway that i could see if my motherboard supports 48bit LBA .Thanks again
Click to expand...


Wayne:
See if any of the following information is some help to you...

There are two basic requirements for the XP OS to recognize the full
capacity of large-capacity disks, i.e., disks > 137 GB (128 GB binary)...

1. The motherboard's BIOS must support large-capacity disks. Virtually all
motherboards manufactured over the past 4 or 5 years have this capability.
Frequently a BIOS upgrade is available for older motherboards to provide
this capability if not originally present, and,
2. The XP OS must contain SP1 and/or SP2 when the OS is installed.

And that's it. There's nothing more that a user needs to do to enable
large-capacity HDD support. If the motherboard's BIOS does not support
large-capacity disks and there is no BIOS upgrade to provide this
capability, the only other practical course of action is to purchase a PCI
controller card having this capability and installing it in the PC.

We'll assume that your motherboard's BIOS supports large-capacity disks.

Is it possible that when you installed XP, the OS did not include SP1 and/or
SP2? If that was the case, that would explain why the system recognized only
the 137 GB you reported. In would have been preferable to install the XP OS
with either SP1 or SP2 installed on your XP installation CD. That way the
full capacity (disk space) of your 250 GB HDD (approx. 232 GB) would have
been recognized. (In this connection it would have been better had you
"slipstreamed" SP2 onto your basic XP installation CD again assuming that
the XP installation CD does not include SP1 and/or SP2).

Anyway, assuming your problem is as indicated above, after you install SP1
or SP2 presumably the full-capacity of your 250 GB HDD will be recognized,
however, the remaining disk capacity above the 137 GB (roughly) that was
originally recognized would be considered "unallocated space". At this point
you can format that additional disk space so that it will be usable - you
can even create multi-partitions from that disk space if you desire. So at a
minimum you will have two partitions.

If you can live with that, fine. On the other hand if you want only a single
partition comprising the entire disk space of your 250 GB HDD (approx. 232
GB) you will have to fresh install the XP OS using your XP installation CD
with either SP1 or SP2 included.
Anna
 
CORRECTION: The step I previously listed as the second requirement re the
system supporting large-capacity hard drives was incorrect. I've corrected
it as it now appears below...

Wayne said:
Thanks for your answers .{john} my hard drive is a western digital
WD2500JB
if that helps any . [Ken] yeah i did not see the BIOS requierment is
there
anyway that i could see if my motherboard supports 48bit LBA .Thanks
again
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Anna said:
CORRECTION: The step I previously listed as the second requirement re the
system supporting large-capacity hard drives was incorrect. I've corrected
it as it now appears below...
:
i recently bought a 260 gig hard drive wich is installed already but i
can
only use 137gig of it ,I checked the knowledge article Q303013 and my
computer seems to meet all the requierments .Now heres my question will
i
have to format my hard drive again after doing all the steps in order to
use
the whole 260 gig ?If no one here can help me could you please direct me
to a
forum wich might be able to .Thanks in advance

Wayne
Click to expand...

Wayne said:
Thanks for your answers .{john} my hard drive is a western digital
WD2500JB
if that helps any . [Ken] yeah i did not see the BIOS requierment is
there
anyway that i could see if my motherboard supports 48bit LBA .Thanks
again
Click to expand...
Click to expand...


Anna said:
Wayne:
See if any of the following information is some help to you...

There are two basic requirements for the XP OS to recognize the full
capacity of large-capacity disks, i.e., disks > 137 GB (128 GB binary)...

1. The motherboard's BIOS must support large-capacity disks. Virtually all
motherboards manufactured over the past 4 or 5 years have this capability.
Frequently a BIOS upgrade is available for older motherboards to provide
this capability if not originally present, and,
2. The XP OS must contain SP1 and/or SP2 at the time the hard drive is
installed.

And that's it. There's nothing more that a user needs to do to enable
large-capacity HDD support. If the motherboard's BIOS does not support
large-capacity disks and there is no BIOS upgrade to provide this
capability, the only other practical course of action is to purchase a PCI
controller card having this capability and installing it in the PC.

We'll assume that your motherboard's BIOS supports large-capacity disks.

Is it possible that when you installed XP, the OS did not include SP1
and/or SP2? If that was the case, that would explain why the system
recognized only the 137 GB you reported. In would have been preferable to
install the XP OS with either SP1 or SP2 installed on your XP installation
CD. That way the full capacity (disk space) of your 250 GB HDD (approx.
232 GB) would have been recognized. (In this connection it would have been
better had you
"slipstreamed" SP2 onto your basic XP installation CD again assuming that
the XP installation CD does not include SP1 and/or SP2).

Anyway, assuming your problem is as indicated above, after you install SP1
or SP2 presumably the full-capacity of your 250 GB HDD will be recognized,
however, the remaining disk capacity above the 137 GB (roughly) > that was
originally recognized would be considered "unallocated > space". At this
point you can format that additional disk space so that it will > be
usable - you can even create multi-partitions from that disk space if you
desire. So at a minimum you will have two partitions.

If you can live with that, fine. On the other hand if you want *only* a
single partition comprising the entire disk space of your 250 GB HDD
(approx. 232 > GB) you will have to fresh install the XP OS using your XP
installation CD with either SP1 or SP2 included.
Anna
Click to expand...


Thanks again for the replys
Click to expand...

[Ron] I am a noob at all this i have no idea how to boot to BIOS

[Anna] That is what happend i installed windows with out SP1 so that would
explain why it did not use the entier HD space ,I might just do what you
suggested and get a WIN disk with SP1 on and just do a complete reinstall
even tough it will suck .At least now i know what went wrong .Thanks again
 
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