Hard disk problem...help!!!

[endoprocta]

I recently bought a Maxtor MaXLine Plus II 250GB ATA hard disk. When I installed into my computer running WinXP, I only see 130GB. What happened to the rest of the space? Can I recover it?
Thanks.

[Zesk92]

I just installed a new Seagate 200 GB hard disk as a second disk drive and it will not allow me to format the entire drive. I've played around with it and can only format about 130 GB.

Is there a size limit in XP or in the registry or something?

[Play_The_0dds]

windows xp will use partitons or drives up to 2 terabytes using the NTFS file system, fat 32 partitions on any windows operating system should only be 32 gigs or less(even though it is possible to create larger). if your drive is not fully detecting, it could be your motherboards bios. some of the older boards were not designed to handle drives that big. many have bios updates that resolve drive read issues, or firmware updates for them.
also it would be helpful to know what utility you are using to set up the disk with.

[Zesk92]

I don't mean to take over endoprocta's post but I've tried using both the Windows XP Disk Manager and software from Seagate.

[Play_The_0dds]

they both should see the full size of the drive,I dug out a seagate manual and made sure it didnt have a limit capacity setting jumper.
questions:
1: when you installed it what did you set the jumper?
2: are there any other drive on the same cable, if so what is it and what is the jumper setting?
3: Did the new drive come with a new ata cable and did you use it or the one in the computer?
4: do you know the motherboard make and model, if it is a branded (proprietary) computer it's make model and serial number.
The serial number is needed because several support sites require it to look up bios/driver/ and firmware updates.
if you can provide as much of that info as possible someone should be able to see whats wrong.

[Zesk92]

Questions and answers:

1: when you installed it what did you set the jumper? 'Cable select' which is the setup on my Dell 4400.

2: are there any other drive on the same cable, if so what is it and what is the jumper setting? A Western Digital WD800BB-75CAA0 with a 'Master' jumper setting.

3: Did the new drive come with a new ata cable and did you use it or the one in the computer? There was no new cable, Used the one in the computer.

4: do you know the motherboard make and model, if it is a branded (proprietary) computer it's make model and serial number. I'm not sure, I was trying to find the info on my computer but couldn't find it.

While I was waiting for a reply I went to Dell and got a BIOS update. It was only one version newer than mine and from 2002. I tried a quick format and it failed.

Thanks for the help!

[Play_The_0dds]

ok i think your problem may be in the jumper settings, if the orriginal drive is going to still be the master, leave it on master. set the new seagate drive to slave. if it still gives you trouble make sure the master is on the first ide plug and the slave is on the second. if it still gives you trouble you may need to buy a new ide cable , make sure to get one that IS ATA 100/133, there is a difference.

[niqola]

XP has a limitation to 137GB
Maxtor has developped a tool to edit registries in order to support big capacity drives:
http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Ma...&downloadID=11
But no idea if it works, in their solutions, they ask to have at least SP1:
http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/m...eHQ9MTM3&p_li=

For the cable, you must have a 80-wire one as shown in the picture at the bottom of this link :
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/id...Cable80-c.html

[Play_The_0dds]

XP with sp1 or above does not limit the drives size to 137gb, some motherboard bios may have a limit which may have a bios update that resolves it(which was why i asked for mainboard info above). i have a sata 200gig in my machine right now and have installed a few ide ata 200 gig on xp and used the full partition size. 9x and ME have a limit of around 127(i have different results on different machines) but this does not mean you should use a partition of more then 32 gig for fat32. if your motherboard will not use 200 gig partitions i would split it to 2 100 gig. you really dont need a big drive to run your os, a 15gig partition is way more then enough if you install your programs and store your files on a different partition/drive.
i run xp off a 10 gig, mandrake on a 10 gig, and use the other 60gig of a 80gig sata for storage for linux then install all my programs and store files for windows on my 200gig sata.