New PC build only see 137G

[Dave N.]

Hey Fellas,
I wanted to ask if any one has experienced the issue of a Sata hard drive install on XP with SP2 all current patches and still only sees 137 gig?

enablebiglba is on and this system supports 48 bit lba. The system is an Asus P5K-E w/wifi and running a Intel core 2 duo.

The system runs good except it not seeing the full 500gig HD. I'm about out of ideas... I am only running one Sata hard drive, a seagate baraccuda 500 gig.

I wonder if I need to run a raid driver or something???


Dave

[Sock Puppet]

Hi,

I haven't had the problem but the attached scan of the blurb that came with my Samsung 500 gig sata drive might be of some help.

It's possible that the raid drivers contain the support for your drive - there's no harm in trying them.

Was your initial XP format of the drive done with XP with SP1 is something I'd think about too.

S.

[dai h.]

I'm faintly recalling that there might have been another driver or something besides the enablebiglba before you could see the full (somewhat less than 500G). Maybe look on the disc that comes with the mobo? I forget what I did but you should definitely see beyond 137G on a big hard drive (i.e. not something impossible).

[Sock Puppet]

Just a thought -

Paragon hard drive manager will allow you to create and format a partition from the remaining space then merge that partition with your original if you want it to.

It does much much more.

It'll let you save an image of your clean, working drive on another partition in minutes - and restore the drive in a few minutes should it ever got tits up.

http://www.paragon-software.com/

S.

[Steve Conner]

How did you format the drive? Was it done automatically for you by the XP setup utility, or what? I wouldn't be surprised if it sees the full 500 G's, but you managed to only format 137 of them somehow.

Try the Disk Management console in XP and see if it shows your drive as 500G with only 137 used.

[dai h.]

just to add: my mobo is also ASUS and I got something like that (only seeing 137GB on a bigger disc which already contained data when I re-installed the OS) which was "fixed" IIRC when I installed something from the mobo accessories/utilities disc.

[Dave N.]

Hey Fellas,
Thanks for the good info. I found that the install from the old XP disk will only see 137 gig and I didn't have any third party apps to format the HD to NTFS on any floppies. XP needs SP2 in the disk to enable seeing more than 137 gig. Also the Mobo needs to be able to support the 48 bit LBA.

I did manage to find the remaining gig space unallocated in disk management so I formatted it there but hate where the partition is. I would have liked to partition 20 gig to XP and use the rest of the HD for other stuff.

I bought a new XP disk set at my job which has XP 32 bit with SP2 in it and XP 64 bit version as well so I think I'm gonna re-install the OS from one of the new disks. My only question is to load 32 bit XP or 64 bit XP. Is 64 bit any better???

My gosh, this new PC is fast on apps and quiet too. The motherboard is an Asus P5K-E with wifi built in and the processor is an Intel core 2 duo, 3 gig.

I'm considering building the same setup into a media case, run more hard drives and get a good Video card for full 1080P HD out. Then install a blu ray drive too.

This system is my build up to get to the media center build I want to do.

Problem with media center PC's are the right software to do media stuff the way I'm wanting to do it. Ultimately to become a couch potato with a remote...

Dave

[Sock Puppet]

Grand.

Paragon hard disc manager also lets you resize partitions... you could have a dual boot system with both 32 and 64 bit versions if you want to play.

Not many apps are 64 bit though so it's rarely any faster.

I have a Keysonic wireless mini-keyboard which has to be the ultimate remote (10m range), around £25 from ebuyer - mousepad included.

BTW it's easy to slipstream sp2 onto a bootable XP disc:

http://www.helpwithwindows.com/Windo...p2-bootcd.html

Also XP+sp1 is all that's needed for large drive support.

Cheers,

S.

[Steve Conner]

I'd not touch 64-bit XP with a barge pole, since you need 64-bit drivers for all your hardware. I don't think the extra 32 bits actually do you any good unless you want more than 4GB of RAM, which you can't have with a 32-bit OS.
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1795/

If you managed to find the missing space in Disk Management, you're home free. You can just resize the partitions to whatever you want now, but you'll need a third party tool as suggested by Sock Puppet:
http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives_05.htm

[Dave N.]

Hey Steve,
I installed XP 64 bit last night, then had a driver issue with the Video card. I tried to resolve that but it was acting like crap and being finicky so I then reformatted the HD and installed XP pro 32 bit.

The partitions on the HD are where I want them now and seem good. Now I need to get the onboard wireless up and running and then try the HDMI on the vid card to see if it will do the 720P like it said it would in the manual.

The motherbaord has some really nice caps on it so I hope this PC will last a long time after forking out almost a grand to build. This was my most expensive PC build yet.

Next media PC will probably cost even more to build

[Steve A.]

By "media center" you are not talking about using your computer for extensive digital recording- right? I'm not sure how well the 64-bit version of XP works for that, with the drivers and software often being very touchy.

But as for your original question here, when I format my drives >137GB outside of Windows (usually with a bootable floppy that loads an alternate OS and the disk utility software) I get a message that I need to finish formatting them in Win XP to be able to access the rest of the hard drive space. Well, I've formatted the last few external hard drives within WinXP so that the full capacity is available immediately.

In the past, external drives were often very slow and unreliable, but I think that the modern ones using USB 2.0 work great. I highly recommend that they be used for data storage. Run your operating system and programs from your local hard drives, but store all of your data files on external drives, just in case your computer develops problems with Windows and you need to reformat your main hard drive... (Been there, done that!) External drives are not perfect, so you might want to back them up to a separate external drive. Or look into the double hd enclosures from Sans Digital that allow two drives to be run in a RAID arrangement.

Good luck with your 64 bit operating system- let us know how it works out for you!

Steve Ahola

[Dave N.]

Hey Steve A.

Good points. I did go back to XP pro and no problems with any drivers now. Did have a problem with the vid on the XP 64 bit. Just decided to go back to what works for me.

As far as a media server. What I wanted to do all along is to build a PC in a case that looks like a stereo receiver and make this a storage for movies and MP3's. That way I don't have to mess with loading CD's or DVD's any more.

Also want to set this up to play Blu Ray as well but I'll load those DVD's since the gig capacity is WAY to hi to save to HD.

PC building is enjoyable to me since I'm not building any amps right now. They are just so darn expensive to build.

Any one here know how to use a digital tuner in a PC to unscramble the movie channels? LOL... I know some one has figured that out.


BTW, I hear that USB is going to 3.0 and a transfer rate of 4.8 gig. WOW......

Dave