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afterdawn.com > forums > pc hardware > other pc hardware > 200g hard drive, but only 129g visable??
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200g hard drive, but only 129g visable??
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madcav
Newbie
_ 		3. December 2004 @ 03:48 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Hi people. I've just built my first PC. Nothing special but for these interested:

Shuttle barebone system
AMD Sempron 2800+
333FSB
2 x 512mb Ram
Running at 2.0 ghz for now ;)
200g Maxtor HDD

Everything else seems fine, but I'm only showing 129g total space. There are no hidden partitions I can see in the management...

It said something in my mobo manual about partitions when setting up my system. I'll type exactly what it says so as to not cause confusion:

----------------------------------------------------
First you need to use FDISK utility to create a primary partition of the hard disc. You can also add an extended partition if your primary partition does not use all of the available hard disc space. If you choose to add an extended partition, you will have to create one or more logical partitions to occupy all the space available to the extended partition. The FDISK utility will assign a drive letter (i.e. C:, D:, E:,...) to each partition shown in the FDISK program. After the FDISK procedure, reboot your system by using the same disc.

Now use the FORMAT utility to format all the partitions you've created. When formatting the primary partition (C:), key in the command, "FORMAT C:/S."
-----------------------------------------------------

I don't really understand that tbh. When I formatted the drive there were no options as far as I could tell for setting up 2nd partitions...

Do I need to wipe everything off and start again, making sure it reads the whole of the drive??

I have no idea tbh.

Many thanks in advance

Aaron
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Xian
Senior Member
_ 		3. December 2004 @ 04:16 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Your bios might not support 48 Bit LBA which is what you need to use hard drives larger than 120 gigs. You also need to be running XP Service Pack 1 or higher for Windows to see it.

This site has more info:
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm
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madcav
Newbie
_ 		3. December 2004 @ 04:17 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
I think I've found the answer myself.

Mobo's don't support anything over 128g. The way round it is to use an Intel chip and download the fix for it. I'm using AMD, so no good to me. The only other option is to buy a PCI card that will allow me to support my larger drive. But since I'm using a Shuttle with only one PCI slot I'm up the creak without a paddle, since I'm using my only spare PCI slot for my TV card.

Gutted :(

Although, please do correct me if I'm wrong. I'd love to be wrong :(
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madcav
Newbie
_ 		3. December 2004 @ 04:18 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Ah, you beat me to it lol

That's the site I found the info on.

Is there any way of checking if I'm running service pack one??

If I am, then I guess I'm out of luck??
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djcsurf
Suspended due to non-functional email address
_ 		3. December 2004 @ 05:27 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Click on control Panel / System / General tab and it will say 'service pack 1' if you have it!!
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Windows XP Pro SP-2 / Venice 3000+ @ 2.6GHz / Geil Platinum DDR400 @ 428MHz / Asus A8N-E v2.0 / Seagate 120Gb Sata
madcav
Newbie
_ 		3. December 2004 @ 05:49 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Just upgraded it to SP1a, but still it's not visible. I guess a 200g hard drive is no good in my system then :(

Is there any way of using a PCI card externally??
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ddp
Moderator
_ 		3. December 2004 @ 11:37 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
try the maxtor disk manager disk, it tricks bios to allow full use of drive, other than that get new motherboard that supports your size of drive. did you check to see if you have latest bios version on motherboard??
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Xian
Senior Member
_ 		3. December 2004 @ 14:20 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Another option is to buy a PCI IDE controller and use it instead of the one on the motehrboard. Maxtor used to give them away with their drives when the 160g ones first came out since none of the motherboards and bios supported that size drives at that time. They don't do that anymore but you can still buy IDE controllers.
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ianski7
Suspended due to non-functional email address
_ 		3. December 2004 @ 16:13 _ Link to this message    Send private message to this user   
Hey

Still another option(much cheaper) is to split the 200gb into two partitions or more. You can have a 120gb and an 80gb or two 100gb.......
You can do this with Partition Magic............
http://www.soft32.com/download-Partition_Magic-151-5.html

You can get the free trial.
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