how to get full capacity

davo

New Member
hi, i just installed a WD 250 gig HD but my computer only recognizes it as a 128 gb hd. how do i get the full capacity?
 
the comp originally had ME upgraded to xp professional but when i put the new hd in it was only installed with xp pro
 
You have to find out if your BIOS supports 48bit LBA, if it does you need to reformat the drive or create another partition (with XP SP1 or later) with the remaining space.
 
No, its a hardware limitation of the revision of the IDE controller, they cap out at 128 (137gig) and you will have to buy a PCI IDE controller to remedy this, but at this point in time you might as well just buy a PCI SATA controller instead, or just get a new motherboard. It has nothing to do with the version of windows XP. XP (2002 release) can address up to 2 terrabytes per a partition. Windows xp uses NTFS 5 and so does win2000.

In theroy the NTFS file system can support up to 16 exabytes, but with parition table restraints it can only support 2 TB, which is far greater than 128gig.

The actual limit of 28bit IDE controller memory addressing is 137gig, and depending on how you view gigs (1000 mb versus 1024 mb) depends on if you see the drive as 128/137.

This limitiation does not effect external drives, because FW and USB can address more.
 
Solution 3:
A third option is to use our Data Lifeguard Tools 11 for DOS to set up the drive. The tools will install an overlay on the drive to support its full capacity. An overlay is a program that installs on the boot sector of your drive and enables full access of your drive's capacity.
 
does that not limit you to a DOS based file system like FAT?

I wouldn't really call that a solution these days, its a hardawre limitation, the IDE controller can not address anything over 128/137gig. Only if there is a firmware update via bios flash will this fix the problem. More than likely you will, and should just replace the hardware.
 
what i do is i just pop it into my current computer and reformat it, then pop it into the new computer and put windows on it.
it'll do RAID 0 higher than 128GB though.
 
what i do is i just pop it into my current computer and reformat it, then pop it into the new computer and put windows on it.
it'll do RAID 0 higher than 128GB though.

that makes no sense you can't create a RAID in another machine, you need to build it in the machine you are using it in, and it takes more than one drive
 
he's asking why hes not getting the full capacity of the drive and not about raiding it.

No, he is saying he is getting around the limit by setting up a RAID 0 on one machine and then taking the drive out and tossing it in the other, or at least that is how I read it. Its not a question it is a statement.

Unless his raid controller is set to IDE mode and he is using it instead. WHich means that the RAID controller is new enough to bypass the 28bit limit.
 
No, he is saying he is getting around the limit by setting up a RAID 0 on one machine and then taking the drive out and tossing it in the other, or at least that is how I read it. Its not a question it is a statement.

Where did the poster say that? That was fade2green514
 
Dont know about you all, but I have installed 2000 and XP on alot of older computers with bios harddrive limits even down to 32gb and 2000 and XP didnt give a crap about how big the bios said the harddrive was as long as the bios picked up the drive, 2000 and XP would see the right size drive unless its a older XP cd then just slipstream SP2 to it
 
okay, unless its an ATA6 IDE controller it will not support anything over 137gig.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Technology_Attachment

Reguardless of what you set it as. Some older OSes do not enable anything over 28-bit addressing, so yes that is why it worked for you, because win2k and higher supports 48-bit addressing. However, that doesn't fix the hardware limit. No software can do it, its a limit by the hardware.
 
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Explain this, I have a old AMD K-6 III+ 450 system, it has a 160gb harddrive and the bios sees it as a 32gb harddrive, when I boot to the XP sp2 cd it sees the whole 160gbs and installs just fine and it has a ATA33 controller
 
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