hdd size problem

**lee551** · 07-19-2005, 07:29 AM

my new 300gb hdd is not being recognized in the windows disk management or partition magic with the right size. in disk mgmt it says 128gb and in partition magic it says 131gb.

i had this hdd installed and formatted in a different computer. it was fine there. i took it out and put it in my machine one day and then windows told me the disk wasn't formatted. so i freaked out cuz i had lots of files on there, but i recovered all of them with finaldata. now i can only get about 1/3 of the drive's space to show up....

edit: i just thought of a possible fix. if i boot to dos and re-formatted it from there, then also ran GWSCAN (http://www.lehigh.edu/computing/tims...ips.shtml#tip3) on it to make sure it has zeroes written to the whole disk... maybe then windows would see all of it's size?

**spirex** · 07-19-2005, 07:51 AM

Does your bios reconigze it as 300gb?

Also, have u installed the service packs if using windows xp?

**Storm** · 07-19-2005, 08:13 AM

get SP1

that gives you support for drives larger than 128 GiB........

has nothing to do with formatting or the bios, just need to update windows SP1 (assuming you have XP, if you have win 2k you need SP4)

**lee551** · 07-19-2005, 04:14 PM

i downloaded the sp1 file and it gives me this error:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;327101

it says my boot file is not the standard way, which is true b/c i do have a modified boot screen. i tried to make it standard, but it still says its not normal.

this is what it is now, what should i remove?

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

edit: or maybe it's b/c my boot.ini file is associated with notepad?

**Darth Sushi** · 07-19-2005, 05:45 PM

Many system BIOS's are limited to 137 GB (128 GB binary) because it can only support 28 bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA).

* You must have a 48-bit LBA compatible BIOS. Goto your MB site & DL a new bios
* You must have a hard disk that has a capacity that is greater than 137 GB.
* You must have Windows XP SP1 installed.

**lynx** · 07-19-2005, 05:58 PM

Looking at that, I can't see anything wrong with your boot.ini file.

The error page is suggesting the the problem is probably caused by one of the other progs described, for instance:
BootXP
LogonUI Boot Randomizer

However, since you don't have a "/Kernel=" setting that can't be the case.

More likely one of the kernel files has been replaced by something, restore the original. If you don't know which file it is, your options are:

Use your original installation disk in recovery mode to find and replace the faulty file.
Slipstream the service pack (or better still service pack 2) into your installation disk, then perform a repair installation.

**lee551** · 07-19-2005, 07:09 PM

ok. i went into my bios and checked on the drive. the bios lists the drive as 300GB. does that mean that i dont need to update my bios b/c of the LBA?

i believe i fixed the boot.ini problem. i removed style xp from my computer, but it was still in the add/remove software menu. i removed it and now sp1 is installing... hope this works, let ya know in a few.

edit: ok, now windows found out my key is invalid, so i gotta fix that real quick.

edit2: the missing sp1 was the problem. thanks for all your help urrbody!

much better.