Hdd size not being read properly

[4nT1_8unNy]

I just bought a Western Digital Caviar 250GB SATA II hdd and windows is reading the capacity as 127GB. Could anyone help?

 

[Diabolic]

Win xp setup wasnt programed to recognise HDD bigger than 127gig

Im learnt that that hard way and lost ALOT of data. About 500gigs worth

But anyway, you need to use the F6 option at the begioning of the xp setup and use your sata drivers that came with your board. or just download from the net.
The bad news is the only to use them is via your stiify drive so if u dont have 1 then you kinda stuck.

But all is not lost, if i remember correctly once u install SP1 or Sp2 u can format the rest and make it a extra partion for the remaining space.

Hope it helps.

 

[4nT1_8unNy]

Thanks for the help. I didnt do the SATA thing cause there werent SATA drivers with my board. I was hoping I didnt have to put a stiffy dirve in. When you install SP1/2 and partition the remaining space is it read as one hdd?

 

[Jah]

if you install xp with sp2 it should be able to pick up the right size.

 

[LabAnimal]

yup SP2. What i do to get around the problem - Either buy a newer OEM version of XP - since it has SP2 and will then format the drive bigger, or get a second hard drive, install XP, then install sp2, then use XP to format the new drive, then go install on the new drive - long way around - but it works.

 

[Diabolic]

When you install SP1/2 and partition the remaining space is it read as one hdd?

No. The hard drive will be formated to what you choose.
Eg: i got a 300gig. My c:\ partition is 30 gig.
So when i get into Windows and install SP2 then i format the rest of the hard drive into my D:\ drive.

Its a bit of work but i prefer it that way. I install everything onto my d:\ drive so when ever i reinstall xp i dont really loose anything as only my C:\ drive gets formated

 

[|tera|]

yup SP2. What i do to get around the problem - Either buy a newer OEM version of XP - since it has SP2 and will then format the drive bigger, or get a second hard drive, install XP, then install sp2, then use XP to format the new drive, then go install on the new drive - long way around - but it works.

Or you could just slipstream your xp cd for sp2, it's legal and then you don't have to pay the extra dosh.

 

[w1z4rd]

Win xp setup wasnt programed to recognise HDD bigger than 127gig

Im learnt that that hard way and lost ALOT of data. About 500gigs worth

But anyway, you need to use the F6 option at the begioning of the xp setup and use your sata drivers that came with your board. or just download from the net.
The bad news is the only to use them is via your stiify drive so if u dont have 1 then you kinda stuck.

But all is not lost, if i remember correctly once u install SP1 or Sp2 u can format the rest and make it a extra partion for the remaining space.

Hope it helps.

Update your bios
Its got nothing to do with XP, but everything to do with your bios. Came across this same problem the other day.

 

[4nT1_8unNy]

I just installed Service Pack 2 and how do I check the partition thing now?
I booted from the windows CD again and I still only have a 127GB partition plus an 8mb partition

 

[|tera|]

Please give us your motherboard model name and number, I'll check online if you need a BIOS update, or if you need SATA drivers.

 

[4nT1_8unNy]

Asus A8N-E

 

[Turbo_Aspiration]

Control Panel -> Admin Tools -> Comp Management -> Stogare -> Disk Management

 

[|tera|]

Your motherboard doesn't need any SATA drivers, it's nvidia based chipset from what I can see, I'm not sure if a BIOS update will fix it, but check the disk management out like Turbo Aspiration said, I have hooked up a 200Gb HDD on Xp and I didn't experience any problems, what version of xp are you running? Pre sp1, sp1 or sp2?

 

[4nT1_8unNy]

Thanks but is there a way to either turn the partitions into one hard drive or make the one paritition just big enough for windows because windows says I have two big partitions of over 100gb each?

 

[|tera|]

If this is a new harddrive, with no data on it, delete both partitions in disk management and create one partition, format the drive NTFS and check what the size is. It won't be 250Gb, more like 230Gb.