Incorrect Hard Drive Size

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dominic
  • Start date Start date
D

Dominic

I have got a new computer for christmas, with a 160GB Hard
Drive :)

I check the BIOS and it says the capacity is 164GB. I
installed Windows XP, went to My Computer and it said the
Hard Drive is only about 137GB.

Does anyone have any idea how to make Windows XP recognize
this space which is lost? I contacted Hitachi and they
said to install SP1.

I installed Service Pack 1, but this hasn't helped. It
still says it only has about 137GB. I wasn't sure but it
is possible it added 10GB, I dont think it did tho. I
remember it saying 127GB, it still does, but the Capacity
after pressing properties says 137GB, which 127GB next to
it.

One of my friends said Windows XP looses more hard drive
space the larger the drive. Thats radiclous if you ask me,
why should an operating system stop you from having the
important space you payed for and need?

I need the 30GB that cant be detected by Windows XP,
urgently!

Thanks very much

Dominic
 
thanks, this looks like it will solve my problem. ill try
it when i get home - at school right now.

really appreciate this, ill tell ya if it works ;)
 
I have tryed following the page you told me to go to, but
i dont understand what it means.

By the part when i wanted me to make a file called
48bitlba.inf using the
sysprep tool, i was unsure what to do. There was no
explination about these
steps, and it started asking me to locate a folder and
create another one
within it, it was not saying where to locate this folder -
and from what i
can tell, it hasnt mentioned how to use the sysrep tool
or where to even
find it.

Please can you direct me to a place which can tell me how
to enable 48-bitLBA large-disk support or can you assist
yourself? - thanks very much.
 
1/ Ensure yr Bios is updated to latest, check yr mb or pc manu. site for
updates
Allthough you can probably skip this as Bios correctly recognises hd size
2/ Firstly check that WinXP is updated to SP1
3/ Check version of atapi.sys as per article
4/fire up regedit, navigate to the key, as in artcle
modify the value EnableBigLba to 1

if yr concerned about modifying registry;
Set a sys restore point for immed.before edit
and or save a registry backup/copy to the desktop
David
i dont understand what it means.
Click to expand...

***The section below refers to an unattended registry edit, you dont need to
apply this***
 
Thanks.

I did that before, EnableBigLba didnt exist at the key in the article. I
made it and set it to 1 but I dont see any difference.
I have restarted since, no change. maybe it will fix itself later...

any ideas? should there be anything else that I should do??
thanks
 
Have you checked the disk in The Management Consul, Disk Management?
You hadnt previously formatted it have you?
If you did youd be advised to completely format it again and remove any
partion.
David
 
wheres the disk management? do you right click my computer
and choose manage? Ill have a look into it. What do you do
there exactly tho?

It was a mew computer I got. It hadn't got an operating
system on it so I had to install Windows XP - before the
installation it formatted the disk with the NTFS filing
system - this formatting proceedure actually took longer
than the installation itself!

Formatting it again will delete my data right? Im not
deleting it all again, ive only just got it all back!

Thanks
 
If you formatted prior to activating LargeDisk support, be aware I read a
post from an MVP suggesting that there could be problems with the drive
structure later.
Start/My Computer.....rt click Manage...... Storage/Disk Management
Basically this allows you to Format/partition etc - the help file is
comprehensive.
Afraid Format will destroy all data
David
 
Thanks,

I went into Disk Manager and managed to fix it myself. I saw that it
mentioned about Extending the drive.
It had the main bit, 137GB and the Unallocated space (about 26GB).
I went into help and it said about extending so I extended the Hard-Drive.
You can get info on how you do this here
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/pr.../proddocs/standard/dm_extend_basic_volume.asp
or http://www.wintrouble.net/discus/messages/53/5076.html#
I just followed that, and extended my hard-drive. Ive got the correct space
now :)

Thanks for the help!
Dominic
 
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