200GB SATA missing 70GB

Zwartsj

ok I have built my own pc and all is working well but for some reason in the bios the HD is displayed as 200GB and on the HD its down as 200GB but our old friend windows XP thinks its only a 130GB now it running sp2 (sp1 one on cd) which seams to fix the e problem on most web pages I have read.

Have any body been through this problem before and if so how do I fix it

Also I have partitioned the HD in a 30gb (C drive) and 2x 50GB

Endurance Man

Ahhhhhh , did you not just answer your own question.

Also I have partitioned the HD in a 30gb (C drive) and 2x 50GB

200 -30-50-50= 70

You didnt format the other 70 gigs. Right click on My Computer, go manage, disk managment and format the other 70

Zwartsj

When if was installing win xp and it asked me if I wanted to create partition (bleu screen at beginning of xp life) it only had 130GB of unpartitioned space

so its not that im just a little slow in doing something as stupid as not partitioning 70GB its 70GB missing from the hd like its not there at all.

WizZard

Windows has a limit on the size of disk it can see/address. I think either SP1 or SP2 sorted it out. Maybe you are using a non-SP'd Windows disk?

dalk

Sounds like the ol' 48bit LBA issue...

Have you ever had a harddrive bigger than 137.5gb installed on that PC?

If not the BIOS of your motherboard may not support 48bitLBA (ie no disks bigger than 137.5 gb supported)...

Your motherboard manufacturer may have a BIOS upgrade that may solve your problem.

Gilgamesh

the linitation is only in the Setup process of XP afaik.
once installed, go into the disc management console and see how much unpartitioned space is still available

Mac daddy

nope this is issue is from the bios itself nothing to do with the OS this is a separate story...

as dalk said caused by the 48bit LBA limitation in the bios.

When the os is installed go to disk management you will see the extra space try and format it you will get a error after 50%, partition magic can't do nothing for you either you will get the same error.

Try and update the bios of the motherboard if that doesn't though luck.

Seen it many of times with proliant ml330G3 servers in our test labs and even on my prev setup i had the same problem.

Khannie

http://home.online.no/~tonyre/LBA_On_Large_Disk.htm

scroll about half way down for the XP version.

JPA

What make hard drive is it?

If it's maxtor use Maxblast 4 which will format the drive and when you reinstall windows it will be at proper capacity.

Or try the other solutions first which are less hassle.