Windows XP not recognizing all space on 40 gb drive 1

[kodiakatv87]

I have two hard drives installed on my computer, a Maxtor 4GB and a Western Digital 40GB. Windows XP will only recognize my 40GB drive as 31.4GB total. I have tried reinstalling XP and this does not solve the problem. What can I do to get Windows XP (Home Edition) to recognize the full size of my drive?

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Upgrade your BIOS to recognise >32Gb drives. If it can't see above 32Gb, neither will XP. CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[kodiakatv87]

I just got my bios updated a few months ago, along with most of the computer. I am now running a P4 1.6Ghz with 512mb of DDR ram. Xp has recognized the drive to capacity before, but after all the reinstalls I have had to do to fix other problems, it stopped seeing all of the drive after one on the reinstalls. It could've also been that my old bios saw all of the drive and the new ones don't, but that doesn't seem likely.

 

[cdogg]

Do you know if the drive is formatted in FAT32 or NTFS? If it's FAT, then you should be able to use a Win98 bootup disk to troubleshoot. From there, use fdisk to see the various partitions that are on the drive. Perhaps your primary partition isn't formatted correctly or there is a chunk of unused space on the drive.


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[smah]

Try Start, Run, diskmgmt.msc
Look at the graphic at the bottom. Do you see any unallocated space or unknown partitions?

 

[wolluf]

XP can only create max 32GB Fat32 partitions. Use Fdisk if you want to use FAT32 with bigger partitions with XP or use NTFS.

 

[kodiakatv87]

To answer the formatting question, the drive is formatted NTFS as is my smaller, 4gb drive. On the disk management, there is only one partition, which is the 31.4gb one. If XP can only create 32gb fat partitons, then it seems like my drive is formatted fat32. However, I know that I have them both formatted with NTFS. So, XP should be able to recognize all of the space of the drive.

 

[wolluf]

so have you checked out Smah's suggestion?

 

[kodiakatv87]

Yes I have and it only sees one partition which is 31.4gb total and the primary partiton.

 

[cdogg]

It looks like your only option from here will be to delete the partition and reformat as NTFS. Perhaps you can make an image to your 4GB hard drive if you don't have that much to backup. Then you can simply move it back over after the reformat.

It's worth a shot anyway! Good Luck!!


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[kodiakatv87]

I've formatted the drive already (NTFS) when reinstalling WIndows XP. The only thing that I can think is that the drive is bad or something like that.

 

[cdogg]

kodiakatv87,

I understand that you've "been there and done that". However, you also mentioned that it was working at one point. It seems to me that the last time you formatted the drive, you may have 'goofed' or something else went wrong. Surely you can spare the time to reformat once more before trashing the drive. Also make sure you delete all partitions before you reformat.

Just my opinion...


~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[kodiakatv87]

I'm not going to trash the drive, I was just thinking that the one I have now might be bad. But thank you for the suggestion, I'll try to reformat and delete the partitions on the drive. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll have to contact Western Digital to try and get a new drive.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

If a HDD is bad, it will generally either misreport partition sizes pretty wildly, not at all, or fail in a pretty certain and possibly noisy manner.

With the correct BIOS interpreter, any hard disk should be correctly reported in a partitioning tool such as fdisk, Partition Magic, etc. If it's not, then maybe there is a problem with the disk.

I would recommend getting rid of the old 4Gb drive - chances are that the new disk is Ultra ATA 66 at least, and the 4Gb is not even UDMA 33. I don't think this would influence the partition size issue, but it would slow down the system if they're both on the same IDE channel.

Hope this helps
CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[kodiakatv87]

Thanks for the suggestion, I think I will get rid of the old drive and make the 40gb one the master. Even with the misreading of the size, I still have 30gb to use. I might try to reformat or get a new drive, I'm not sure yet.

 

[cdogg]

Citrix,
I have recently stumbled across some articles on independent device timing. It's my understanding that because of this technology, which has been used on virtually every motherboard since the Athlon & PIII came out, UDMA devices can run at their own ATA speeds without interfering with the other device on the same IDE channel.

Have you heard anything about that? It's still news to me. Basically, it's saying that an ATA/33 device won't slow down an ATA/100 device. However, this IDT technology doesn't get around the old PIO Mode standard. If a device on the IDE channel uses PIO, then the other device will be forced to as well. That alone is reason enough to separate your CDROMs from your hard drives to be safe, since even newer generic CDROM drives still use PIO.

I posted some of the articles below. Let me know what you think. Thanks!!

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confTiming-c.html

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/conf.htm

http://www.tweak3d.net/articles/howbusmaster/

~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[CitrixEngineer]

cdogg - good articles. That was part of my point - the 4Gb drive MAY not be using compatible modes.

Like anything, though, it's always worth proving the theory against the real world; if, in this example, removal of the older disk speeds up overall disk performance (testable via Sandra), then that's good news for the system. If there's no difference, then that's also good, because you get to keep the old disk running.



CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk