Wierd hard disk problems

[Robbie Niblock]

I have a Dell P4, 512MB RAM, 40GB XP Pro machine. It's about 2 years old.

I recently bought a new 200GB hard disk, which I added last week and
everything was fine. I had another 200GB to play with.... yay!!!

A couple of days ago, my primary disk (40GB) died. Windows wouldn't boot,
and there was a wierd noise coming from the disk. Fair enough, I just
removed it and went about installing windows on the other disk.

I booted off the CD and entered the setup. I was going to create a C: and a
D: on this 200GB disk. When I got to the partition screen, it was as if I
only had a 130GB disk. It wouldn't give me the full 200GB. I even tried
creating one partition and loading windows on it. Whe windows was loaded, it
still only showed 130GB - I've lost 70GB somewhere.

Just to be clear, when I had windows loaded before on the 40GB disk and
added the 200GB disk, it did appear to give me the full 200GB.

HELP!!!

Thanks in advance.

Robbie

 

[Malke]

I have a Dell P4, 512MB RAM, 40GB XP Pro machine. It's about 2 years
old.

I recently bought a new 200GB hard disk, which I added last week and
everything was fine. I had another 200GB to play with.... yay!!!

A couple of days ago, my primary disk (40GB) died. Windows wouldn't
boot, and there was a wierd noise coming from the disk. Fair enough, I
just removed it and went about installing windows on the other disk.

I booted off the CD and entered the setup. I was going to create a C:
and a D: on this 200GB disk. When I got to the partition screen, it
was as if I only had a 130GB disk. It wouldn't give me the full 200GB.
I even tried creating one partition and loading windows on it. Whe
windows was loaded, it still only showed 130GB - I've lost 70GB
somewhere.

Just to be clear, when I had windows loaded before on the 40GB disk
and added the 200GB disk, it did appear to give me the full 200GB.

In order to be able to deal with larger disks sizes, two things have to
be in play: 1) your BIOS must support it (it probably already does, but
you could check on Dell's site); 2) XP must have SP1 installed.

Malke