Hard Drive not showing up as full size...?

Karl Hungus

I just got a 160gig Western Digital Caviar from Komplett, and I've installed it last night. Though the problem is that it's only showing up as 137gig, or 128gig if you count windows' funny way of measuring size. My main drive however, a 120gig Western Digital Caviar is showing up as exactly 120gigs. BIOS is showing the new drive as 160GB Max Capacity.

Now I'm pretty sure there must be something funny going on there, I've tried re-formatting it and re-partitioning it, and it's still insistant on the 137gig size!? There's probably something I'm overlooking here though, so help anyone?

Thanks in advance!

Creamy Goodness

what o/s

i think u need win xp sp1 to show hard drives bigger than 137gigs

Karl Hungus

XP, so no service pack though...

I take it you just download a service pack, right?

Creamy Goodness

windows update my friend

Karl Hungus

Might seem a bit silly of me not to have windows updated, but I've been doing a lot of re-installing of windows and mad stuff such as of late, and I just didn't bother to upgrade it, at any stage.

I should be installing a new partition for window soon, so I'll actually update it this time round.

Can anyone else verify that XP can't show bigger hard drives?
Not that I'm doubting you cremo, I just want to get a definite idea that that's the problem.

leeroybrown

Yeah, download SP1 and XP will see it all. Hard drive sizes are limited by the ability of the PC or OS to address the data.

Drive manufacturers measure drive sizes with a Mb as 1000000 bytes (rather than 1048576 bytes). The WD Caviar 120Gb is actually 110Gb.

137Gb in drive manufacturer sizing which is 128Gb is 2^37 bytes. Thats the software limit until you install XP SP1 for larger addressing.

The other two limits encountered are:

8.3Gb (manu) 8Gb (normal) 2^23 bytes
33.3Gb (manu) 32Gb (mormal) 2^25 bytes

Theoretically speaking the drive manufacturers are right as Kilo, Mega and Giga are multiples of 1000 but by convention we use 1024 (2^10) as it suits binary systems. Hard drives are one area where exactly binary sizing isn't necessary. KiB, MiB and GiB are the absoutely correct notation for the 1024 multiples if I remember correctly.

[nicK]

im having the same 'problem' - i've installed service pack 1 on win xp and my 160gb hd is still showing up as 128gigs (really 137gigs) - i havn't installed all the security and critical updates from windows update.. by d/ling those, will my hd then show up as 160gb?

therecklessone

Here you should be looking:

http://support.wdc.com/

There be all the answers.

[nicK]

it's actually a samsung spinpoint hard drive i have, so it's a winxp issue, not the hard drives..

therecklessone

OK, I was in a hurry so didn't add much to my last post.

The answer to your XP problem can be found at your manufacturers support site. For the original poster it will be WD, for you Samsung.

Karl Hungus, if you are still having problems contact WD support staff by e-mail, they are mighty helpful. Take a look at their own utilities for formatting/partitioning their drives, they work a treat.

I was told by Komplett and God knows how many others that ME doesn't support drives >137GB. The replacement drive I received from Komplett yesterday doesn't have any problems, and its 160GB.

jonhate

Ok if you go into Windows registry and and change add an entry under atapi you can see 149 gigs or so. I did this with an old mobo yesterday and it worked.

Heres some links.

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/1115/
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013

Now if this doesnt work you need to get a newer controller card, PS the reason you will only see 149 gigs is Western Digital say one 1GB = 1000MB rather than 1GB = 1024MB.

Hope that helps.

[nicK]

tis ok now.. apparently there was a hidden partion (duh) .. thx cartman

Karl Hungus

Thanks people...

To be honest, I wont bother updating windows, or changing the registry as of yet.
I'll be doing a fresh install one of the days, I'll wait untill then to sort any of this shiznit out.

At least I know it's not a hardware problem, and I'll know what to do when I do have the fresh install up and running.

Again, thanks... This has all been a great help.
Though I was certianly aware of the difference in Gig measurements.

therecklessone

For future reference Karl, here's where to look:

The full capacity of EIDE drives larger than 137GB (128GB binary) is not recognized in Windows 2000/XP

Karl Hungus

Just to let people know, I installed service pack 1, and everything's hunky dory, so to speak!

tman

yep, sp1 is your only man.
i managed to make an xp pro cd with sp1 slipstreamed into the installer.
damn handy if you're constantly doing fresh installs of windows. (roughly 7 times in the past 2 months:rolleyes: )

unkel

Yeah slipstream is handy

Originally posted by tman
roughly 7 times in the past 2 months:rolleyes:

You might as well setup M$ as quickdial on your phone then

tman

Originally posted by unkel
You might as well setup M$ as quickdial on your phone then

er, yeahhhh... product activation... what a bitch, eh?
:shiftyeyes:

Karl Hungus

Indeedily!

I'm waiting untill I've got my PC properly set up before I activate windows, I can see a re-install in the near future.