Partition question - Half my HDD not showing up...

adam

Hey hey,

I recently bought a new computer and had Vista installed on to it. I'm now in the process of getting XP up and running (not a dual boot, I removed - or I think I removed - Vista). I have noticed that its only saying 130GB of my 300GB hard drive is being used for C:, with no other partitions in place.

Any one have any ideas on how I can get my full 300GB of space available???

Mark Dygert

You might be able to sort the partitions out in Disk Management?
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/en-us#

You could go it old school and use a start up floppy loaded with FDisk to wipe out all partitions... but that seems more ghetto then you need.

IronHawk

* Make sure you data is backed up first*

So your doing a fresh install of XP and want to use the whole drive?

Boot to the XP CD and get to the spot where you see the drive. Blow away the partition and then repartition it to use the entire drive.

Format the drive and install.

adam

Iron I did that, and even in the XP CD install it says 130gb..


When I had Vista installed it said 50% of my 300gb hard-drive was already used (which is 150gb, close to 130gb...)

Brice Vandemoortele

Is it using fat32? according to Microsoft site these can only go up to 127.53 GB

adam

NTFS

D4V1DC

Drivers, Raid or IDE?

Bios up to date with the latest?

You could use a boot cd called hirens I believe it runs in dos, it has tons of programs that should help you with your problem.

I am working with a raid problem myself and I am a little lost though I think I just need the drivers for my western digital HD because it's using raid.

Tell us how it goes.

pliang

Hmm...I had my computer built custom from NCIX so I usually don't encounter issues like these...

But aside from its said, maybe you wanna update the driver in device management or use the partition disc that came with it if you do.

There's also a free multi use app called "Switchblade" that helps partition your drive without much of the usually hassle.

Of course before attempting any of that save in more than one place with yoru existing data...

Sage

Adam I think you need XP service pack two to see the full hardrive, so if your XP is not fully updated then it won't see it. Then once you have that you might have to enable some setting, which I forget what it is but should come up on a search easily. It might be in the bios or the registry.

Once you do that, if the partion can only be 130 gigs go to Control Panel, Administrative tools, Computer Management, Disk Management and you see the entire hardrive. There should be a section that says unpartitioned space. Create partions however you want.

Alex

adam

Ah, sage that worked... I've had to make the additional 170GB as a second drive.

Any idea if I can combine the two together?

adam

Update - I'll use PartitionMagic to combine the two.

thx everyone

Sage

Adam be careful with what you do, it might work for awhile but you might end up with failed drive in the future. I use Partition Magic and works fine but find out if there can be any issues with having a 300 gig partition, it would suck if you lost your 3d work cause Windows sucks.

Alex

Hito

you just need a simple registry edit, works for XP-SP1 or later; and Win2K-SP2 or later.
http://www.tonysfreeware.com/lbaonlarge.htm

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305098 Same info, but from the horse's mouth

IronHawk

Adam you should be able to slipstream SP2 and see the drive. I wouldnt mess around with Partition Magic or reg hacks to get it to go as you might get data corruption/logic errors down the road.

There are plenty of articles on slipstreaming out on the net. Do a search for 130gb and slipstream and you'll get a ton of hits to good articles explaining why your only seeing 130gb.



slipstream sp2 into XP

Mark Dygert

I keep windows on a 10gb partition by itself. That way I can wipe it out whenever I need to. Its a throw back to the Win98 days, since I switched to XP I haven't needed to reinstall it.

Penzer

Partition Magic is great, I've never had any issues with it. I have to second Vig on the OS partition. I have a partition for XP and my data/applications on another partition.

Joshua Stubbles

When you format the drive for the XP install, make sure you choose a full format, not a quick format, or any other option.
It's easy to accidentally pick the wrong one.

IronHawk

Created my first slipstream install just the other day on my old XP cd. Worked out really slick and was easy to do following any of the tuts out there. Still need to add in my raid drivers so I don't have to use a floppy to see my mirror.

Confirmed XP sp1 and lower wont see over 130gb. The driver libraries for sata drives are also pretty weak without sp2.

Still going to test out xp in a virtual machine with CS2 before dual booting or reinstalling on my new rig though.