300GB hard drive only recognizes 132GB

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Guest

I am using WinXP Pro SP2.

Recently I was backing up files to an external USB hard drive, and it told
me the drive was out of space. Checking properties showed that I was using
around 130GB of disk space, with 170GB free. After a while I realized I was
running up against the 132GB barrier.

How do I get it to let me use the whole 300GB? Windows knows it's there,
because it shows that I'm only using about a third of the drive.

My ATAPI.SYS version is 5.1.2600.2180, which is newer than KB303013, so that
doesn't appear to be the problem.
 
Maybe the firmware in the external drive needs to be
up-dated.



"paiged at bigfoot dot com" <paiged at bigfoot dot
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message
|I am using WinXP Pro SP2.
|
| Recently I was backing up files to an external USB hard
drive, and it told
| me the drive was out of space. Checking properties showed
that I was using
| around 130GB of disk space, with 170GB free. After a
while I realized I was
| running up against the 132GB barrier.
|
| How do I get it to let me use the whole 300GB? Windows
knows it's there,
| because it shows that I'm only using about a third of the
drive.
|
| My ATAPI.SYS version is 5.1.2600.2180, which is newer than
KB303013, so that
| doesn't appear to be the problem.
 
paiged said:
I am using WinXP Pro SP2.

Recently I was backing up files to an external USB hard drive, and it told
me the drive was out of space. Checking properties showed that I was using
around 130GB of disk space, with 170GB free. After a while I realized I was
running up against the 132GB barrier.

How do I get it to let me use the whole 300GB? Windows knows it's there,
because it shows that I'm only using about a third of the drive.

My ATAPI.SYS version is 5.1.2600.2180, which is newer than KB303013, so that
doesn't appear to be the problem.
Click to expand...

Can you use Disk Management and create a partition in that free space?
If you require all 300GB in one partition you will need to start again
and create one partition or use third party software.
 
The 132GB barrier is a hard drive capacity oriented problem. Its source is
the bios that is translating the hard drive, or a limitation in the OS, at
the time of making the partition that currently exists on the hard drive.
In your case, its difficult to say which is the problem.

--
Noncompliant


"paiged at bigfoot dot com" <paiged at bigfoot dot
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
 
As you can see from other responses, there are two different problems with
hard drives not recognized above 132 G B. One is a bios problem and this
may be the case if your USB hard drive is installed in a drive enclosure
that is more than about 3 years old. I have a hard drive enclosure that
won't work with any drive above 132 GB but works great with drives smaller
than that.

The other problem is on which machine the drive was formatted originally.
If the machine was an XP box that did not have XPs SP 1 installed on it the
drive would have been limited to 132 GB. This was a limit of the original
XP that was fixed with SP1.

The fix is to get a third party program (Partition Magic or similar) and
attempt to stretch the drive out to its full size. Make sure that all of
your data is saved somewhere else before any attempts are made to stretch
the drive. If the "stretch" fails, it may be a bios problem with the
enclosure.

Another fix would be to partition and format the remaining space as another
drive.

Good luck.



"paiged at bigfoot dot com" <paiged at bigfoot dot
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
 
The drive was a relatively recent purchase from Seagate. It came
preformated. It wouldn't seem that the drive enclosure or the initial
formatting would be a problem. I will see what Disk Management says about
the drive. I may also try the Partition Magic route.

Thank you for all of the responses.
 
There is more than one 132GB barrier.

SP-2 can overcome the one in XP.

But, your motherboard may have a more fundamental barrier, also set at about
that size. Check the motherboard manual, or contact the PC maker (if a
major brand). Note that this is unlikely the problem, if the PC is fairly
new.

It is also possible that the external hard drive came with a partition of
132GB to permit use by older systems. It might be possible to format the
rest of it using the XP disk management tool. If that tool sees "raw" of
"unformatted" space, then you can use it to format that space.

Finally, it is possible that some jumper(s) were set to limit the drive
capacity. This could be the case if you placed a hard drive inside of a USB
enclosure, without first checking its jump settings. If the drive came
already installed inside a USB enclosure, then this is unlikely to be the
problem.


"paiged at bigfoot dot com" <paiged at bigfoot dot
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
 
Well thanx, you're welcome..

If your copying large ISO files on a regular basis may want to go with the
NTFS file system.. However, if you want to stay with FAT32 and wish to
format the remaining free space or the whole drive FAT32, with the help of
Disk Management
and the format32 app you can do so quite quickly, if your up to it, your
call..
http://www.ridgecrop.demon.co.uk/fat32format.htm
Just another option or tool for the tool box..
Cheers
j;-j
 
See inline.

--
Noncompliant


Bob Harris said:
There is more than one 132GB barrier.

SP-2 can overcome the one in XP.

But, your motherboard may have a more fundamental barrier, also set at
about that size. Check the motherboard manual, or contact the PC maker
(if a major brand). Note that this is unlikely the problem, if the PC is
fairly new.
Click to expand...

The onboard bios of a motherboard doesn't affect the hard drive capacity
size available of an external USB/Firewire drive. I assume that's what
you're talking about. Its dependent on the I/O chip in the external
enclosure that processes its own bios, translates the HD for the PC, and
passes that info on to the USB or Firewire bus in translated format for that
bus system.
 
Yes. Wish I knew what you were doing when the problem occurred. There is a
known 4 GB limit for FAT 32 formatted drives. To go above that size file
you need to convert to NTFS.
I still can't believe that any drive manufacturer in this day and age
formats their drive as FAT 32.


Live and learn, right.


"paiged at bigfoot dot com"
 
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