XP XP2 EnableBigLBA=1 Hard Drive > 137g

[neil]

Hello all,

I am another lucky XP Pro user with another hard drive >
137g problem.

I bought a Western Digital 160g EIDE hard drive and
proceeded to do a new installtion of XP. When I first set
up a partition on the drive, formatted NTFS, my BIOS could
not see the whole 160g. Researched the problem and found
out I need to upgrade BIOS, which I did. Bios now reports
160g primary master. Tried to delete new NTFS parition
but was forced to format FAT32 over it. Used old Fdisk to
remove all partitions. Reboot. When the drive was bare
again, created new 20g and 40g partition. Formatted and
installed XP on 20g partition. Installtion went well.
Tried to download SP1 to get support for hard drive >
137g. XP SP1 is no longer available. Microsoft claims
that all SP1 fixes are in SP2 and I do not need SP1.

Installed SP2 and XP lists the drive as 149.05g not the
160g it really is. Remaining 90g (should be 100g) is
listed in disk manager as 69.40 freespace and 21.06
unallocated. I have not been able to combine the
freespace and unallocated.
EnablebigLBA was not in registery after SP 2 install. I
got Western Digital Data Lifegaurd to add Enablebiglba = 1.
Drive is still reported as above.
I want to create one drive with the remaining room; should
be 100g.

Can't?

Please tell me if SP2 indeed includes enablebiglba. Is my
drive stable? How to create a 100g partition using the
all of the remaining room. Why is XP only reporting the
drive as 149.05g instead of the 160g the BIOS reports?

To really fix the problem, I am willing, if need be, to
wipe the drive again spend another night reinstalling
everything.
Thanks..

Neil

 

[george]

Please tell me if SP2 indeed includes enablebiglba. Is my
drive stable? How to create a 100g partition using the
all of the remaining room. Why is XP only reporting the
drive as 149.05g instead of the 160g the BIOS reports?

You are (like all of us) the victim of the HD manufacturers method of
selling 'more' then they really deliver.
They've done this since the dawn of HD's. If they advertise a 160GB HD they
calculate their GB as 1000*1000*1000
However the OS calculates with powers of 2, so a GB as far as the OS is
concerned is 1024*1024*1024.
Taking the manufacturer 160 GB and dividing it by the OS GB will effectively
bring you in the region of 149 GB.
(Have the exact same thing on my HD's)
Computer Management reports 149 GB and the entire disk is 1 partition, no
unallocated space left.

So basically, we've been conned.
)

hth

george

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Installed SP2 and XP lists the drive as 149.05g not the
160g it really is.

Nope, it's really 149GB, despite what the drive manufucturer
says.

All hard drive manufacturers define 1GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes,
while the rest of the computer world, including Windows, defines
it as 2 to the 30th power (1,073,741,824) bytes. So a 160 billion
byte drive is actually around 149GB.



Some people point out that the official international standard
defines the "G" of GB as one billion, not 1,073,741,824. Correct
though they are, using the binary value of GB is so well
established in the computer world that I consider using the
decimal value of a billion to be deceptive marketing.

 

[Guest]

My 160 GB Seagate shows 1526 and change in the bios when I boot up but
Windows only shows 149 GB. I have the SP2 and large drive enabled.
I received this bit of information from Seagate tech support today..

-----------
Windows uses two different numbering systems to report the size of the
drive.
1. BINARY numbering system (based on the number 8)
2. DECIMAL numbering system (based on the number 10)
You can verify the size of the drive (i.e. BINARY vs. DECIMAL), by
following the steps below:
Double Click My Computer
Right Click the suspected Hard Drive
Left Click Properties

The BINARY size and the DECIMAL size will be displayed above the Pie
Chart.
Both of these numbers are exactly the same as far as drive capacity is
concerned.
Here are some examples:
Seagate's 40 GB Model ... expressed in BINARY is approximately = 37 GB.
Seagate's 60 GB Model ... expressed in BINARY is approximately = 55 GB.
Seagate's 80 GB Model ... expressed in BINARY is approximately = 74 GB.
Seagate's 120 GB Model ... expressed in BINARY is approximately = 111 GB.
Seagate's 160 GB Model ... expressed in BINARY is approximately = 149 GB.
Seagate's 200 GB Model ... expressed in BINARY is approximately = 186 GB.

The following is the technical explanation of DECIMAL vs. BINARY:
Most Hard drive manufacturers use DECIMAL numbers to show capacity:
(1 KB = 1,000 bytes)
(1 MB = 1,000,000 bytes)
(1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes)
Most Computers (BIOS) and Operating Systems use BINARY numbers to show
capacity:
(1 KB = 1024 bytes)
(1 MB = 1,048,576 bytes)
(1 GB = 1,073,741,824 bytes)

EXAMPLE:
Seagate's Model ... ST3200822A total formatted capacity expressed in:
DECIMAL = 200 GB ...
The same drive will show up in Windows expressed in BINARY as
approximately:
BINARY = 186 GB.
Use this formula to convert the DECIMAL 200 GB to a BINARY number
(200,000,000,000 GB ... divided by ... 1,073,741,824 =
186.264514923095703125)
Your Operating System would show this 200 GB drive as a BINARY number
equaling approximately 186 GB ... minus any space already used.