Hello Chums... ...!

Desktop Computer.

With my 80 GB Hard Drive getting rather full, I decided to purchase another HDD.....as you do...

I really wanted another 80 GB HDD, but they are rather rare now, so I finished up with the smallest I could find, which was a 250 GB 3.5" Desktop, Internal Drive...Nice... ...!

....trubble is...

Now I have Formatted it, it displays a mere 125 GB in total...NOT 250 GB as I hoped!... ..!

I know someone out there will know the reason for this, and maybe the cure, as I believe it is a common problem!

The HDD was formatted in the default NTFS File System.

My Present system: A little bit old...but does the job...

Gigabyte GA7 N400, Socket A, PCI + AGP Motherboard.
Processor: AMD Socket A, 2600+ (2.1 GB).
Graphics Card: nVidia 7800 GS, 256 MB, AGP slot.
Installed Memory: 2.3 GB.

..so there you go, Chums..

..is there any way I can revert it to its full size (250 GB), even if it means a re-format in a different? File Type?

Many thanks......!

F.... ...!

Latest Edit:....Operating System: Windows XP SP2... ...!

Sorry second post in a row... This is a long shot... but Can you do this?

Right click my computer... click on mange....click on disk management

Look around there for empty HDD space

SCREENIE:

Should look like that. I think anything not blue or green is not in use

I remember that the XP SP1 and SP2 addressed HDD size limits.. So that would be my first question.

I also remember that some older motherboards just won't see more than 137GB, period.

A few years ago, I had to give an old Asus motherboard a BIOS flash for it to see my 160GB HDD.

I'm sure Nick will be along shortly to clear this up.. mean time.. my suggestion would be to to partition the drive so that your old motherboard will see TWO 120GB drives   

As for FAT32 ?  A can't think of any reason to to be using that file-system. The two biggest advantages that XP brought us were true 32-bit, and NTFS.

Quote:


Yeah.. and I kinda miss XP  

But FAT32 is a holdover from Windows 98.. NTFS was one of the best things in XP.. Are you running XP with FAT32 ?

Edit..  Oops     I see from your edit that you formatted NTFS, but I'm still curious.. is your XP installed on a FAT32 partition ?

Brett_Henderson wrote on Nov 13^th, 2008 at 7:54am:


nVidia Chip Set, Brett.... ...

Gigabyte: GA7 N400S-L.....Socket A, AGP

Present situation with all my Win XP SP2, FS 2004 files, etc, installed, all on one Partition.



250 GB HDD.

F.... ...!

There are 4 possibilities

1. This system has an improper NTFS.sys and HAL which was brought on because SP2 was added to the system from the web update and not a Windows XP SP2 install CD. The limit imposed by Windows  default is 128GB

2. The Windows install has proper LBA support but the BIOS of the computer is not set to allow large block access. Unlike modern motherboards many older systems require the user turn on large disk support for the drive in their BIOS under the drive settings. Without that enabled the system will only see the 128GB limit. Some very old system BIOS do not have any large disk support as this was something that was added over the years.

3. The controller or controllers drivers are old and do not support LBA

4. The drive is mislabeled .. however I doubt that because the 128GB limit is being displayed which indicates this is either a Windows, controller, BIOS or driver problem.


You should be able to open a 3rd part disk management program such as Partition Magic, Acronis Disk Director and see the unpartitioned space which will not show up in the MY COMPUTER area of Windows. The disk management part of Windows should also display this area unless there is some kind of configuration issue which can be found with add-on hard drive cards

If you see the unpartitioned space then the drive is recognized.. all you need to do is format that space. If the space does not appear then its one of the above issues 1-2-3

With older systems it was sometimes necessary to MERGE the unpartioned space into the recognized space to get the full monty... that requires special 3rd party disk software as mentioned above however the danger is the Windows install MUST be correctly >128GB LBA aware or data corruption will occur

Paul try either eBay or second hand computer parts shops

Ivan wrote on Nov 13^th, 2008 at 3:41pm:


Ivan... ...!

KT133....>>>>

http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/chipsets/legacy/kt133/

..that looks very much like the beast I have on my Gigabyte Motherboard with an AMD Athlon 2600+ Thoroughbred, Socket A Processor fitted.
Every thing works fine, except for this reduction in HDD size!

What is this "separate controller card" of which you speak?... ...!

Cheers...

F...."reductions" are the bain of my life at the mo'... .... ....!