Windows XP Pro sees 200Gb SATA HD as 136Gb and BIOS as 200Gb

[John Ross]

I just installed new WD2000JD SATA Caviar 200Gb HD on my PC. (9 months old).
I also upgraded the bios so the BIOS sees the disk correctly as 200Gb. While
installing windows it says that I have only 136Gb HD. After the installation
windows explorer reported as 200Gb but after restart the chkdsk kik-up and
staffed all the installation. It found a lot of bad sectors ... When I put
this disk as data disk without windows booting from it - it is working
correctly. (with windows from second HD).

From that I understand that the problem is with windows. So my question is
what to do???

Tx in advance

JR

 

[DL]

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013&Product=winxp
You might also want to check the drive with a WD drive checker utility

 

[John Ross]

Thanks for that. My XP Pro is not SP1 so as I understand I must apply it
immediatelly after the installation. Is that not too late???
JR

 

[Alex Nichol]

I just installed new WD2000JD SATA Caviar 200Gb HD on my PC. (9 months old).
I also upgraded the bios so the BIOS sees the disk correctly as 200Gb. While
installing windows it says that I have only 136Gb HD. After the installation
windows explorer reported as 200Gb but after restart the chkdsk kik-up and
staffed all the installation. It found a lot of bad sectors ... When I put
this disk as data disk without windows booting from it - it is working
correctly. (with windows from second HD).

From that I understand that the problem is with windows. So my question is
what to do???

A disk bigger than 128GB binary style, 137GB decimal needs to use 48bit
LBA, so as to be able to use the later parts at all. You have that in
your BIOS but it only came in in Windows with SP1. So if your XP CD
does not have SP1 inbuilt, you need to do the initial install in a much
smaller size (it is in any case a very bad idea to have the system in a
partition anywhere near that big - I would start off on it at say a 16GB
for C. Once installed you can upgrade to SP1 and then use the Control
Panel - Admin Tools - Computer Management, select Disk Management to
make further partition(s) that will be able to access the whole disk.

 

[Bill]

You must install SP1 and then enable the 48-bit LBA in order for Windows to
see and use the whole 200GB. 48-bit LBA is not supported in pre-SP1
machines. HTH

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