Is windows scamming me? (SATA HDD Woes)

[AnariusLoneWolf]

OK, I've had a maxtor sata 160gb for a good long while now, and the thing has never hiccuped once...the problem comes in the fact that it reads as being only a 130gb drive...I figured hey, screw it, its the cut down that you get with any big drive. I recently bought a Western Digital 250gb SATA drive, and it ALSO reads as 130gb...so what the heck???
Another issue: I recently decided to wipe my whole system, and re-install W2k on the WD 250, using the Max160 as storage.
BIOS reads both drives fine, and windows does not! It reads ONLY the western digital as a 127gb drive, and no sign of the maxtor...EXCEPT if i right-click on the WD HDD, go to Properties->Hardware it shows BOTH the Maxtor and the WD along with their model numbers...yet I can't see the Maxtor anywhere elese.

What the heck is going on, PLEASE HELP ME!!!!

P4p800
P4 3.2C
1GB DC DDR
FX 5950 Ultra
SB Audigy 2

 

[Freestone]

See

http://www.48bitlba.com/

in particular for Windows 2000:

http://www.48bitlba.com/win2k.htm

and for Windows XP

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

 

[AnariusLoneWolf]

Where is that in the registry? im having a hard time finding it...also...why would this affect both drives?

I working on that now...hopefully it fixes this wierd problem with not recognizing the maxtor drive.

 

[Freestone]

There are a lot of unanswered questions here.

Does your BIOS support 48-bit LBA? What does it show for drive sizes of both of your drives?

What does Disk Management show for your drives? (Start, Run, diskmgmt.msc)

What Service Pack levels are your Windows 2000 and XP install CDs at?

I am assuming Windows 2000 is currently installed. What Service Pack level is it at now?

I am guessing the registry entry you are asking about is EnableBigLba. Be sure to read and understand the implications of enabling this support:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;q305098

 

[wolluf]

This is odd - I didn't think SATA drives were subject to the same 48 bit issues as IDE ones (I've got a 160GB drive in a multi-boot machine and the NT4 installation can see the whole drive - and NT4 has never had a 48 bit patch released). Also, I'd have thought any motherboard which supports SATA drives would definitely support drives > 128GB.

How were the drives partitioned - and with which filestore? (doesn't fat32 have a limitation around this size)?

 

[mainegeek]

I would suspect the OS as well. I believe FAT32 is limited
to 137gb, so 132gb minus the partition would get about where you are at now 128-130gb.

I highly doubt that it would be a bios limitation on a mobo running a P4 3.2 as stated above.

I would sugest re-preping both drives either NTFS.

 

[mainegeek]

....I meant 137gb minus the partition not 132.....

 

[Freestone]

wolluf:

SATA Hard Drives and 48-bit LBA

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

mainegeek:

I agree the BIOS is probably not the limiting factor here, but may as well cover all bases.

FAT32 supports drives up to 2 terabytes in size

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154997/EN-US/

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310525/EN-US/

 

[mainegeek]

Freestone,
I think I meant to say FAT32 with Win9x.(late night)

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q184006&

I guess the question to ask here is what OS is AnariusLoneWolf running.

 

[wolluf]

Freestone - then how do you explain my NT installation seeing the whole 160GB? That link may be right, but NT doesn't have ANY 48 bit capability for IDE drives (seen a number of posts from people asking where you can get this for NT, so I know NT can't see > 128GB IDE) - so why should it see large SATA and 2k/XP not? (haven't got a pre-SP3 2k or pre-SP1 XP installed to check this, but have got a spare primary partition, might just install one to see!).

Seriously though - as mainegeek says - we need to know more about AnariusLoneWolf's set up.

 

[Freestone]

wolluf - I apologize if it looked as if I was trying to say you were wrong. I gave the link just to show that not even they knew for sure how SATA 48-bit LBA drives were handled. I too would be interested in seeing if a pre-SP3 2k or pre-SP1 XP would see your entire drive. I don't have any SATA drives, let alone a spare primary partition to try this, so I leave it to you ;-)

And we are all in agreement: we need to know AnariusLoneWolf's set up, in particular the OS and what service pack level it's at.