I have a 250GB drive that I usually put Windows on, and when I go to partition it it only thinks It's about 130GB or something. Is there any common things that cause this to happen? Never happened before...
Windows setup not detecting full drive size
It could be a bad drive. Sometimes they will fail in such a way as to make all the sections of it beyond a certain bad section unusable, but the rest of the drive will still work. Often the whole drive still shows up while it is like this, until you try to reformat or repartition the whole drive. If this is the case, the only thing you can do is see if it is still under warranty, which is likely since hard drives often come with long warranty periods. You could still use it, but I wouldn't count on it, as it could completely fail at any time.
Another slim possibility is that your motherboard cannot read that much. This is only possible on a old, obsolete motherboard though, and the size of 130 Gig doesn't seem right for it... I thought the old limit was 40Gig? Anyway, if this is a relatively new motherboard, then that isn't a possibility anyway.
Check to make sure the whole drive is partitioned. It could be that the 130 GB partition was made, but that the rest of the drive was left unpartitioned by accident.
Another slim possibility is that your motherboard cannot read that much. This is only possible on a old, obsolete motherboard though, and the size of 130 Gig doesn't seem right for it... I thought the old limit was 40Gig? Anyway, if this is a relatively new motherboard, then that isn't a possibility anyway.
Check to make sure the whole drive is partitioned. It could be that the 130 GB partition was made, but that the rest of the drive was left unpartitioned by accident.
Damn I really hope that isn't the case. It would be a pain to have to get a new drive. It was completely fine before the format, was working at it's full capability.
What version of Windows ?
I'm not sure of the details exactly, but 130Mb sounds like the sort of limit I came across on Windows 98
With later versions (XP onwards), I'm sure the limit is higher.
You could always boot from a live Linux CD/DVD, and confirm that the disk is usable for the whole size..
Good luck, Malcolm
I'm not sure of the details exactly, but 130Mb sounds like the sort of limit I came across on Windows 98
With later versions (XP onwards), I'm sure the limit is higher.
You could always boot from a live Linux CD/DVD, and confirm that the disk is usable for the whole size..
Good luck, Malcolm
Windows XP. Like I said if you press delete at the start, go into BIOS it knows that the drive is 250GB exactly but Windows Setup will only partition it at around 130GB every time. Then obviously when you've installed Windows it thinks the C drive is much smaller than it actually is. I'm going to try the hard drive in another machine sometime soon and see if that helps.
Would updating the BIOS help? It's been suggested to me even though the BIOS is the only thing that gets the drive size right.
Would updating the BIOS help? It's been suggested to me even though the BIOS is the only thing that gets the drive size right.
I think there is something to do with your formatting :S
Do you know your way around formatting? Or did you screw it up? :p lol
It's better to download a partitioning software like Partition Magic (proprietary) or partition manager (freeware).
Install it and see whether it shows the full capacity.
Most probably it will show a unused/ raw partition. Try to format it to NTFS. REstart and see wheather Windows detect the remainder of the HDD is detected.
If this works, U owe me bro
Do you know your way around formatting? Or did you screw it up? :p lol
It's better to download a partitioning software like Partition Magic (proprietary) or partition manager (freeware).
Install it and see whether it shows the full capacity.
Most probably it will show a unused/ raw partition. Try to format it to NTFS. REstart and see wheather Windows detect the remainder of the HDD is detected.
If this works, U owe me bro
| Josso wrote: |
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Would updating the BIOS help? It's been suggested to me even though the BIOS is the only thing that gets the drive size right. |
Its obviously not a bios issue, do not update the bios! It wouldn't help, and if something goes wrong while you are updating, it can ruin your bios permanently, forcing you to replace the motherboard...
When you put it in the other computer, format it using a boot disk with Fdisk and format.com on it. By using these reliable DOS utilities, you eliminate the possibility that Windows is the problem. (Of course, if that works, then it is either the old motherboard or Windows, while if it does not work, then it is probably the hard drive itself.)
Windows XP can only read and write to a hard drive with a maximum partition size of 137Gb. Divide the hard drive into two ~125Gb hard drives, and both will work.
| Quote: |
| Windows XP can only read and write to a hard drive with a maximum partition size of 137Gb. Divide the hard drive into two ~125Gb hard drives, and both will work. |
I'm a little curious as to where you get this information... do you mean any drive that is in an XP system or just the installation drive?
137GB seems a bit strange.... usually BIOS and file system limits are powers of 2 (ie. 512MB, 2GB, 4GB, 32GB, etc.) At present I have a 250GB drive with one single partition that does use the whole drive (although I did not create this partition using Windows Setup, nor is Windows actually installed on this drive). As I am running Service Pack 2, I'm not sure whether the original XP release or SP1 would register the drive capacity differently.
Josso, assuming your drive isn't faulty in any way, I would suggest checking whether you're running the original version of XP, SP1 or SP2, just in case there are limitations with the older versions.
I got the same problem with Server 2003. I have a extra 10 GB hard drive for some documents, nothing big is needed. It says that I have 10 GB in total, but the hard drive is already using 5 GB. This was a fresh install so I don't really know why it was doing that.
Do not worry! There is nothing wrong with your drive. XP below SP2 do not support drives in that size. Install with the offered partition size and then when you updated your XP you can modify the partition size to the maximum available.
| Diablosblizz wrote: |
| I got the same problem with Server 2003. I have a extra 10 GB hard drive for some documents, nothing big is needed. It says that I have 10 GB in total, but the hard drive is already using 5 GB. This was a fresh install so I don't really know why it was doing that. |
You mean that you want to use the same partition for the documents (this is the default) where the OS is? In this case the OS especially WS 2003 does occupy 5GB or more. Use a different partition for documents (Right click the my documents icon select properties and change target folder location)!
No, I have an extra hard drive that is shared with all my computers. And I've had server 2003 for about 2 years now, and never has it used 5 GB for nothing.
And where is your virtual memory assigned? Where you have exchange file. Maybe some of your program occupy that space.
When you install an os. in advanced installation options you can point or chose locations and sizes of that mater.
In 32-bit systems maximum exchange file size can reach more then 4GB, but it is as well maximum. Default calculation is 1.5 x Ram capacity. So in case of 512MB of ram the hidden file called mostly pagefile.sys will have 768MB of your disc space. All depends where is that file.
Another thread are hidden files
...
When you install an os. in advanced installation options you can point or chose locations and sizes of that mater.
In 32-bit systems maximum exchange file size can reach more then 4GB, but it is as well maximum. Default calculation is 1.5 x Ram capacity. So in case of 512MB of ram the hidden file called mostly pagefile.sys will have 768MB of your disc space. All depends where is that file.
Another thread are hidden files
...| Josso wrote: |
| I have a 250GB drive that I usually put Windows on, and when I go to partition it it only thinks It's about 130GB or something. Is there any common things that cause this to happen? Never happened before... |
First thing, use partition magic to partition of your drive. it is support many file systems. Then tell us, what happened?
| Josso wrote: |
| Damn I really hope that isn't the case. It would be a pain to have to get a new drive. It was completely fine before the format, was working at it's full capability. |
| microait wrote: | ||
First thing, use partition magic to partition of your drive. it is support many file systems. Then tell us, what happened? |
And if you do know of a free version of partition magic that actually works, feel free to link it, i would love to have one in my arsenal.
| psycosquirrel wrote: |
| Windows XP can only read and write to a hard drive with a maximum partition size of 137Gb. Divide the hard drive into two ~125Gb hard drives, and both will work. |
its very simple.... did u check the jumper settings? cos one of the jumper setting will limit the drives space.... check weather its on the correct pin...
I had a similar problem.. My 40 GB HDD never got detected for more than 32 GB... NO its not the mother board. Cause the same Mother board also supports my 250 GB HDD. And it runs perfectly
I have a feeling that you have another instance of Windows XP, or another OS occupying a goo chunk of your HDD. Have you tried reformatting the entire harddrive or deleting the used partitions before you format the HDD for XP installation? This happened to me many years ago, and it wasn't very hard to fix..except that I had to delete everything of course. Good luck!
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