installing xp on hdd bigger than 130gb

newguy5

newguy5

New Member
so 130gb is the largest that xp can handle on sp1 apparently. my 250gb hd when i try to format from the windows xp disk will only format 130gb and i can't even see the 120gb. so how do i see it? i don't have a floppy so i can't boot from a disk. i don't mind partitioning the other 120gb, but i can't see it. help please.
 
137 actually, but yeah, 130 is about right.

Do you have a Windows Install CD? You should be able to see the entire drive from there and make partitions. If the Windows CD doesn't see everything, you can download a program called GParted, burn it to a CD as a .iso file, then boot from it and partition anything you want.
 
SP1 should be able to see way past 128/137GB if BIOS also can. YOu're sure about the SP? And your disk management cannot see it?

As long as Windows cannot see it past it, it doesn't give much to use a third party tool to make changes
 
nyhk said:
As long as Windows cannot see it past it, it doesn't give much to use a third party tool to make changes
Click to expand...

The 3rd party tool can be used to make smaller partitions so Windows can see everything. For example, it won't see 1 250 GB drive, but it can see 5 50 GB ones.
 
nyhk said:
SP1 should be able to see way past 128/137GB if BIOS also can. YOu're sure about the SP? And your disk management cannot see it?

As long as Windows cannot see it past it, it doesn't give much to use a third party tool to make changes
Click to expand...

Gparted is an OS within itself, so it is not limited by windows. You can partition it so that way each partition is under 130GB.
 
The number of partitions doesn't matter. This issue is about LBA addressing with only 28 bits vs 48 bits in SP1/SP2.

So Windows cannot address more than 2^28 sectors
 
O, thats funny since back in the day when i had a 160gb i could use all of it after i partitioned two 75gb partitions.
 
I don't know what you did. But if the very lowest disk driver i Windows cannot address more than 2^28 sectors, you cannot go beyond 128 GB.

2^28 * 512 = 128 GB

So it is not possible to reach a sector in a partition on the other side of that border
 
When windows requests a sector from the drive, it does so with an address of 28 bits. And with 28 bits, you cannot go beyond 128GB. It is not mathematically possible. You need 48-bit LBA for that
 
it's the bios and not sp1. if you don't upgrade the bios larger internal drives will be partitioned to 137 max to utilize your entire drive space. however, external drives are not affected

so without the bios upgrade windows will automatically partition your drive to 137 gig partition. if you don't see the partitions go into disk management to format it/assign drive letter
 
i'll try the other program. the windows cd was actually before sp1 and everything. it was like THE first copy of windows xp, and it only sees 131061MB.
 
newguy5 said:
i'll try the other program. the windows cd was actually before sp1 and everything. it was like THE first copy of windows xp, and it only sees 131061MB.
Click to expand...

So you DON'T have any service pack? Then go download SP2. You will not be able to use your entire harddrive without. The other tools won't change that.

After SP2 you can make another partition, og use gparted to extend your existing partitoin.

You can use slipstreaming (google) to make a new cd with SP2 integrated in it.
 
Motoxrdude said:
O, thats funny since back in the day when i had a 160gb i could use all of it after i partitioned two 75gb partitions.
Click to expand...

As did I. Two 160GB HDD's each with two partitions (at different times). OS saw both partitions each time.

Technically, GParted isn't an OS, just a program capable of being run as a Live CD. But hey, yeah, it works :)

You can install Windows using one large partition, then install SP2, and see the drive.
 
imsati said:
As did I. Two 160GB HDD's each with two partitions (at different times). OS saw both partitions each time.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if you're trying to say the same, that you can fully use a 160 GB harddrive just by using multiple partitons when the addressing scheme is LBA 28?
 
The number of partitions doesn't matter. This issue is about LBA addressing with only 28 bits vs 48 bits in SP1/SP2.

So Windows cannot address more than 2^28 sectors
Click to expand...
I'm quoting this because it's right. :P

Don't make a big partition (or even multiple small ones) unless your OS supports 48bit LBA. That means XP SP1 or later. You usually get data corruption/loss when you do that. If you manually enable 48bit LBA on preSP1 installs of windows XP, it may work but it's easy enough to slipstream SP1 or SP2 so just do that :P
 
this thing is killing me. i did the gparted and did two 125gb drives. problem is, and i've installed xp twice now, whenever i boot up it seems that one of the drives (either the one that has xp on it or the empty one) are like 90% full even if nothing is on them. now my xp drive has 111gb free and the totally empy 125gb drive says it has only 20.5gb free. what? how is that possible? i've done this twice. the time before i even installed sp2 and all the updates, then noticed the xp drive said 103 gb used and 14 free but when i clicked on all the files only xp had used 3.3gb. i don't know what's happening. anyone?
 
the windows cd was actually before sp1 and everything. it was like THE first copy of windows xp, and it only sees 131061MB.
Click to expand...

Somehow I missed reading this the first time. My bad.

The number of partitions doesn't matter. This issue is about LBA addressing with only 28 bits vs 48 bits in SP1/SP2.
Click to expand...

That is correct then.

Post #19...
Click to expand...

Why not either make a slipstream XP disk that has SP1 or SP2, or just install what you have now, then upgrade it to SP1 or SP2?
 
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