SJR said:
Anna, Jef, I'm Back - pages marked as unavaialable until now(!).
Most of the last few threads have gone over my head (although I did try
standing up).
The BIOS detects the drive on start up as 200GB; could this just be the
HDD
label it detects or the capacity? It is however a SATA HDD vice an IDE,
am I
correct in assuming the IDE driver issue is a red herring?
The PC is only a coiple of months old, but was back very very recently for
defect rectification and had the MB replaced, it was after this that I
notivced the HDD capacity issue - it may have been 128 vice 200 before but
I
didn't notice.
Once again many thanks for yr help.
SJR
SJR:
In substance, I'm repeating the information I provided you previously, as
follows...
"In response to your original posting in which you stated your system wasn't
recognizing the full-capacity of your 200 GB HD (only 128 GB was being
recognized), I responded as follows:
"The problem is the 137 GB (roughly 128 GB binary) barrier. There are two
basic requirements for the XP operating system to recognize hard drives
whose capacity is greater than 137 GB (128 GB)...
1. The motherboard's BIOS must support this capability (we'll assume yours
does), and;
2. SP1 and/or SP2 has been installed at the time the large-capacity disk is
installed.
So if you install a 200 GB drive in an XP OS sans SP1 or SP2, the system
will only recognize the smaller capacity as above. It's as simple as that.
Now when you subsequently install SP1 or SP2, the system *will* recognize
that additional disk space, but it will be "unallocated space" which you
obviously have to partition & format if it's going to be of any use to you.
For this you use XP's Disk Management utility. It's a relatively simple
process. (Do a Google search on XP Disk Management if you know nothing about
it).
So you *must* install SP1 or SP2 if the full capacity of your 200 GB disk is
to be recognized. I assume you already have SP2 installed on your machine
because you refer to reinstalling it. There's no need to reinstall SP2 under
these circumstances. So if SP2 has been installed on your machine, access DM
and partition/format the "unallocated space". There's plenty of information
on the net re using XP's DM."
I assumed from your query that you *did* have SP2 installed on your machine
since you referred to a "reinstall" of that SP. As I stated above, *if* your
motherboard supports large-capacity disks, when you subsequently install SP2
(or SP1) the remaining capacity of that large drive will be recognized
beyond the 137 GB (128 GB) originally recognized by the system when you
originally installed the HD and did *not* have SP1 or SP2 installed at that
time. This remaining capacity, however, is considered "unallocated space"
and must be partitioned and formatted using XP's Disk Management utility.
Now you say DM does *not* show any unallocated disk space and (presumably)
indicates total disk capacity of only 128 GB. Do I understand you correctly?
You're absolutely sure you have SP1 and/or SP2 installed? And you're sure
your motherboard's BIOS supports large-disk capability, yes?"
I honestly don't know what I can add to the above to make this issue more
clearer to you. And the fact that you're dealing with a SATA HD and not a
PATA drive is not relevant in this situation. Ditto as to the reinstallation
of the IDE controllers.
Frankly, I'm not even sure I understand your problem at this point. What
this all comes down to is simply this...
1. If your motherboard's BIOS supports large-capacity drives, i.e., drives >
137 GB, and;
2. You have SP1 and/or SP2 installed at the time you partition/format your
drive, the full-capacity of that disk will be recognized.
Period.
Anna
