Hard Drive says its smaller then it is?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark
  • Start date Start date
M

Mark

I brought a new 250GB hard drive, but its says its 128GB.
Where it says:
My Computer / right click on local drive C - click properties / capacity:
128GB

Anyone know why?
Thanks in advance.
 
=?Utf-8?B?TWFyaw==?= added these comments in the current
discussion du jour ...
I brought a new 250GB hard drive, but its says its 128GB.
Where it says:
My Computer / right click on local drive C - click properties
/ capacity: 128GB
Click to expand...
Is it formatted as FAT32 or NTFS? FAT32 has a limit to partition
size. So does NTFS but it is much, much larger. Also, be sure that
your BIOS is correctly recognizing the size and type of your new
HDD.
 
Thomas added these comments in the current discussion du jour
....
Hi Mark

are your new Hard drive connected with sata ?
Click to expand...
I'm not the OP, but I'll bite: what difference does SATA vs. IDE
make wrt maximum partition size?
 
because if you got sata , you need to download drivers from the mobo site,

readed about alot of this problems , and they where caused by no sata
drivers

thats why i woundered if it is sata

understand ?
 
Mark said:
I brought a new 250GB hard drive, but its says its 128GB.
Where it says:
My Computer / right click on local drive C - click properties / capacity:
128GB

Anyone know why?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

For IDE, there are two addressing modes. 28 bit (old way) and
48 bit (new way). SP1 added support for 48 bit. If support is
there, then the partition on the disk may be safe to expand past
128GB (137GB). Or add a second partition, to use the space above
the current partition.

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_block_addressing

There is also some info here - note that you don't need to buy a
BIOS upgrade from them, as BIOS upgrades come from your computer
manufacturer, for free.

http://www.48bitlba.com/faq.htm

Paul
 
Mark said:
I brought a new 250GB hard drive, but its says its 128GB.
Where it says:
My Computer / right click on local drive C - click properties / capacity:
128GB

Anyone know why?
Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...


Mark:
It's a near-certainty that you've run up against the 137 GB (roughly about
128 GB in binary terms) "barrier", to wit...

In XP two conditions are needed for the OS to recognize the full disk
capacity of a HDD when the disk capacity is > 137 GB (128 GB binary)...

1. The motherboard's BIOS must support large-capacity disks, and,
2. When you installed your new 250 GB HDD in your PC the XP OS contained SP1
and/or SP2.

Virtually all motherboards produced in the last 5 years or so meet condition
#1.
If it's an older MB that does not have large-disk capability frequently the
manuf. has a BIOS upgrade that will provide that capability.

Possible your XP OS does not contain SP1 and/or SP2?
Anna
 
A couple of possibilities, both involving LBA48 addressing:

1) your mainboard doesn't support large drives
2) you don't have SP1 or SP2 installed

(1) may be fixable with a BIOS update, from your PC or mainboard
manufacturer

for (2), make sure SP1 (or SP2) is installed, and see:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303013/en-us

Note that the reported size of the HD depends on the definition of a
gigabyte. The HD manufacturers define a gigabyte as 10^9 bytes. Windows
makes it 2^30. A 137 GB drive under the decimal definition is approx. 128 GB
under the other definition.


Return address scrambled. Replace nkbob with bobkn.
 
Thomas said:
because if you got sata , you need to download drivers from the mobo site,

readed about alot of this problems , and they where caused by no sata
drivers

thats why i woundered if it is sata

understand ?
Click to expand...

If you didn't have SATA drivers, you wouldn't be able to access the disk at
all.
 
Mark said:
The mother board I have is this:
http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=K8N_Neo4_Platinum&class=mb

I can update it, but will the settings change if I was to format my
computer? Also, I have SP1 & 2 installed. Do they have to be installed before
the hard drive?
Click to expand...

Yes.
Best to create a new XP cd with sp2 slipstreamed.

However, if you now have sp2 installed, you should be able to use disk
management
and create another drive from the free space
 
So what are my options to make it work? Update my BIOS settings?

I Already have SP 1 & 2 installed and the HDD is connected via IDE. Do I
have to install XP and SP 1 & 2 on another HDD before installing my 250GB one?
 
philo said:
Yes.
Best to create a new XP cd with sp2 slipstreamed.

However, if you now have sp2 installed, you should be able to use disk
management
and create another drive from the free space
Click to expand...


Mark:
The information you rec'd from philo is basically correct.

Your motherboard supports large-capacity hard drives so there's no problem
there.

At the time you install your large-capacity HDD - the 250 GB one - your XP
OS must contain SP1 and/or SP2 in order for the *full* capacity of that disk
to be recognized by the OS. Apparently in your case neither one of these
service packs were installed at that time. Isn't that so?

Assuming it is...

If you now install SP2 onto your OS, the full capacity of that HDD will be
detected. HOWEVER, the remaining disk space beyond that 128 GB will be
considered "unallocated" disk space. It's disk space that you can partition
& format through XP's Disk Management utility, however, that means you will
have (at least) two partitions on that HDD. If that's OK with you, then it's
OK with me!

But if you want *only* a single partition on your 250 GB HDD, then it would
be best to slipstream your present XP OS installation CD with SP2 as philo
suggests. Again, I'm assuming here that your XP installation CD does *not*
presently contain SP1 and/or SP2. I'm assuming here that we're talking about
a "fresh install" of the XP OS onto your 250 GB HDD (presumably this HDD is
going to serve as your boot drive since you've mentioned it presently has
been designated as your C: drive), i.e., there presently is no data
(programs or other data) installed on that drive - at least none that you
need.
Anna

P.S.
Forget about the "SATA drivers" issue raised by one responder to your query.
That has nothing to do with your present situation.
 
Thank you for your help. So my MB is fine (as I thought it would be) =)
I just need to make sure SP 1&2 are installed BEFORE I install my 250GB HDD?

This would be difficult because my installitation CD dosnet have either on
it. I have them on seperate discs. I also wanted to use my 250GB HDD as the
master drive and install the OS on it.
 
Reading through the other messages in the thread, it appears that your
mainboard should be fine with a 250 GB drive.

I appears that you installed the original version of XP on the drive, and
then the service packs. (Note: you don't need to install both SP1 and SP2.
SP2 is a complete update, all in itself.) I believe that the original
version of XP didn't support LBA 48 addressing, so you couldn't create a
partition larger than 128 GB.

I'm not certain of these options, but most or all of them may work:

1) Under the drive manager, create a new partition in the unallocated space
on the drive. You'd get the full capacity of your drive, but in two
partitions (separate logical drives).

2) Use a third-party tool (one example: Partition Magic from Symantec) to
resize the C: partition to the full size of the drive. (Use caution. While
this process shouldn't be destructive, Symantec suggests that you back up
all your data to prevent possible loss.) (Partition Magic isn't free.)

3) Prepare a new version of your XP installation CD with SP2 "slipstreamed"
onto it. (I've never used the "autostreamer" application, but it's supposed
to be the easiest way to do this.) Back up all your data. Boot from the
revised XP CD. Delete the old 128 GB partition, and create a new one that
give you the full space of the drive. (You'll have to re-install everything,
so this could be a lot of work.)

You should make an SP2-updated version of the XP CD anyway, for future use.
At the very least, it would permit you to do a repair installation, which
you currently can't do.

Good luck.
 
Check your hard drive's jumper settings.
Most hard drives have a jumper configuration to limit the hard drive
capacity to 128 gig for compatibility reasons.


Also ensure that you have SP2 of Windows XP installed, as that is needed for
128 gig support, in addition to the obvious hard drive controller support.
Click to expand...

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Jason Tsang - Microsoft MVP

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