I installed 300gb drive, but only use 128gb

StationPayne · 08-28-2006, 06:40 PM

What I have:
WinXP Home Edition, service pack 2
2GB Ram
Master HDD 300gb (seagate ultra ATA)
Slave HDD 160g (seagate ultra ATA)
Motherboard (unknown)

My Problem:
I just installed a brand new Seagate Ultra ATA 300 GB drive. I made it my master drive and kept my old drive 160 GB as a slave. Unfortunately, when I go to "My Computer", I only see a maximum space of 128 GB for each of the drives.

My Questions:
Can someone please tell me how to unlock the full capacity of my new 300 GB drive? I also have a second 300gb drive I want to install as a slave drive to replace my 160gb drive. Can someone help me use the full storage space of that one, too (if the solution to my master drive is the same to the problem with my slave drive) ?

**Lead3** · 08-28-2006, 07:13 PM

Hi,
Right click My computer, then click on Manage, then disk management.
What does it show here?

Edit: Make sure you have LBA support enabled in the BIOS.

Paul

StationPayne · 08-28-2006, 09:09 PM

It says under Disk Management:

Layout - Partition
Type - Basic
File Type - NTFS
Status - Healthy (system)
Capacity - 128.00 GB
Free Space - 28.06 GB
% Free - 21%
Fault Tolerance - No
Overhead - 0%

At the bottom it says I have 151.46 GB Unallocated, but other than that information I don't know how to check the BIOS. I think I can't get the full storage capacity from my 300gb drive because I don't have an updated BIOS, and I have no idea how to update my BIOS either.

How do I check if LBA is enabled or not, and how do I enable LBA in my BIOS? I feel so helpless.

**Lead3** · 08-28-2006, 10:45 PM

Hi,
During the startup POST the screen should say to enter setup press DEL or f2 or something. This is how to enter the BIOS.
What type computer do you have?
Also under disk management does it show any unallocated space in the graphic display next to Disk 0 or 1 ,etc.?

**hwm54112** · 08-28-2006, 11:37 PM

If you cannot enable LBA, nor update bios, the seagate disc wizard utilities will install a ddo (dynamic disk overlay) to overcome the drive size barrier or you can purchase a pci drive controller card that contains it's own bios to overcome the limit. The controller card is the best choice. The overlay's work fine but add a layer of interpretation that can make recovery operations more problematic and hamper/prevent the use of some disc utilities if the occassion ever arises

crazijoe · 08-29-2006, 05:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StationPayne

At the bottom it says I have 151.46 GB Unallocated,

This tells me that both your BIOS and Windows sees the full drive. You need to right click on the unallocated space, partition and format it.

What it appears to me is if SP2 was installed after WinXP was installed.

**hwm54112** · 08-29-2006, 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crazijoe

This tells me that both your BIOS and Windows sees the full drive.

I agree with you 100 %, with a clarification. If there is a bios limitation, a 300 gig drive might be seen in bios as a 137 gig and still be fully recognized in windows after installation. The reason being that Bios understands the drive geometry, but does not recognize numbers over 137, therefore the limitation. Since windows does recognize numbers over 137, it is possible to format the unallocated space as a second partition even though bios doesn’t appear to see it.

StationPayne · 08-29-2006, 11:48 AM

Will partitioning my Unallocated space on my master drive split it into 2 drives, making it drive-C and drive-F or something? Because my master drive I'm using right now is drive-C, my slave drive is drive-F, and my 2 DVD-CD Rom drives are labelled drive-D and drive-E.

I installed 2 new Seagate Ultra ATA 300 GB drives.

Under Disk-Management, my Master Drive says I have 128 GB healthy and it also shows 151.46 GB Unallocated. However, my Slave Drive says I have 279.46 GB healthy, but nothing is Unallocated.

As for booting up my PC, do I need to hit ESC, F1, or F2 before the Windows logo comes up (with the blue lines loading)? When I try to hit keys to enter BIOS mode or SYSTEM SETUP mode, I always try to hit them when the blue\green lines are loading at the Windows logo. I only have about 5-6 secs before the Windows logo appears, so do I have to be quick about hitting keys?

My PC is WinXP Home Edition, Intel Pentium 4 (3.06 Ghz), 2gb RAM. I think my motherboard is an Intel Brownsville 830 series or something...I think it's an older model because it's not listed as a current model on the Intel website. I don't have PCI express capabilities either.

crazijoe · 08-29-2006, 12:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StationPayne

my Master Drive says I have 128 GB healthy

Partitioned and formatted before SP2 was applied. Since WinXP with no service pack does not support 48 bit LBA, there is a 127 or 137 GB limit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by StationPayne

and it also shows 151.46 GB Unallocated. However, my Slave Drive says I have 279.46 GB healthy, but nothing is Unallocated.

Partitioned and formatted after SP2 was applied or partitioned and formatted with a third party software.

Yes, there are problems with some BIOS that do not have 48 bit LBA. However you should not see this in most modern systems. This was usually a problem about 3 years ago. Most modern day MB have support for 48 bit LBA.

Quote:

Originally Posted by StationPayne

As for booting up my PC, do I need to hit ESC, F1, or F2 before the Windows logo comes up (with the blue lines loading)? When I try to hit keys to enter BIOS mode or SYSTEM SETUP mode, I always try to hit them when the blue\green lines are loading at the Windows logo. I only have about 5-6 secs before the Windows logo appears, so do I have to be quick about hitting keys?

Normally you would nned to hit the keys before the Windows logo appears. If you need time to read the BIOS screen or manufacturers splash screen to see what key to press, hit the pause key. This will stop the system BIOS from booting any further. When you want to continue the BIOS boot, press the enter key and the system will continue to boot.
Most aftermarket motherboard manufacturers will use the delete key to go into the BIOS.

More information on 48 bit LBA.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q303013

StationPayne · 08-29-2006, 10:58 PM

I entered BIOS setup upon booting up my PC, I checked my both my Primary and my Slave drives. Both say "LBA Enabled = Supported" or something like that, but it does say that LBA is supported.

If in BIOS mode it states that LBA is supported and under both my Master and Slave drives it shows I have total memory of 300 GB, then why can't my Master Drive exceed more than 128 GB? Also, why is my Slave drive able to store up to 279 GB, but my Master drive can only go up to 128 GB? Is it because when I copied my files over to my new Master drive it also copied over Windows update information, somehow still limiting my storage space to 128 GB?

Please help, how do I get full use of the storage on my Master drive?

**hwm54112** · 08-30-2006, 06:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by StationPayne

Is it because when I copied my files over to my new Master drive

Actually, that could be the problem. Some programs copy over an exact copy, including original drive size, to the new drive, while others copy just the data allowing use of the full drive.

Ghost, I believe, allows you to do either.

If you are, in fact cloning an old drive to the new, why not just re-clone it using the seagate utilities,

StationPayne · 08-30-2006, 01:30 PM

As for using the Seagate utilities that come in the box with the hard-drive, the instruction booklet told me to install DiscWizard for Windows (which I did) and then use that program to install and partition the my new Seagate hard-drives (which I also did). Yet my master drive is still limited to 128 GB of space even though my service pack 2 allows for higher storage drives. What would happen if I simply re-install Windows XP ? If I selected to reinstall WinXP and keep all of my current data on my drives, will it repair\reinstall over everything and remember the installation of Service Pack 2, allowing me to take full use of my 300 GB drive, or still limit it to 128 GB ?

My DVD-rom and CD-rom drives are labelled E and F.
I have the master drive C which shows:

128 GB healthy and 151.46 Unallocated

And next I have my slave drive F which shows:

279.46 GB healthy

What would happen if I right-click and create a "New partition" on the unallocated space of my master drive? Will it create a new drive G or H, acting as if my single master drive has been split into two partioned drives? If so, then would I still be able to install all my software programs and run them directly off of my master drive if memory goes beyond 128 GB? Or will my computer behave as if I have drive 1 master (128gb), drive 2 slave (279.46gb), and drive 3 slave (151.46gb)?

crazijoe · 08-30-2006, 01:41 PM

If your XP install cd does not have SP2 in it, you will need to make a slip streamed install CD that will have SP2 integrated with it.

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...slipstream.asp

This will be the only way you can install XP and use the entire drive space for your OS.
I usually advise against using DDO as it can make recovery of data next to impossible.

Yes you can partition the unallocated space. This will give you another "drive" in my computer. What drive letter it will receive will be entirely up to you.

StationPayne · 09-01-2006, 01:26 PM

So, I've checked if LBA support is enabled (which it is), looking for the right WinXP service packs (i have SP 2), and discovering that my old master drive's information was copied\cloned over to my new 300gb master drive, limiting the storage to 128gb. While my new slave drive is able to go up to 271.56 GB out of the 300 GB.

What are my options for retrieving the 151.46 Unallocated space on my 300gb master drive? If I right-click and "new partition" the unallocated space on my master drive, my computer will behave as if I have 1 master and 2 slaves...and I don't want that. So what do I do? Do I need to buy one of those PCI card things that allow me to use large HDD? Do I need to download and install the Intel Application Accelerator? Or do I just live with my 128gb space that I have?

I don't know what to do anymore.

crazijoe · 09-01-2006, 01:35 PM

To merge the 2 partition you will need to buy a third party program like Partition Magic.
The only other way is to use a WinXP SP2 install CD and re-install your OS.

My thoughts..
If this was mine, I would back up any important data onto the slave drive and reload a fresh copy of WinXP.

crazijoe · 09-01-2006, 01:37 PM

BTW, 272GB is the prox. formatted capacity of a 300GB drive.

**hwm54112** · 09-01-2006, 02:39 PM

If your old master drive is still intact, format and reclone the new drive using the dos version of the seagate utilities or use xxclone and you will have full use of the drive.

If that's not possible, clone the new master to the new slave (assuming it's empty), format the master and clone it back again using either tool above and you will have full use of both drives. I know it seems like alot of work but it's simpler than what's going on

I suspect the whole problem has arisen from using discwizard for windows or having missed the checkbox that indicates you will be using service pack 1 or higher when setting up the drive. When I used discwizard for windows I just didn't like the interface, don't like setting up drives in windows anyway, and did the "dos" version. Since you have a working windows, xxclone works great, just make sure to check the three boxes on the advanced setup page.

Bill

StationPayne · 09-01-2006, 05:17 PM

Ok, thx for ALL of the info everyone! I've got to work a lot on my hard-drives.

Because of the help from crazijoe and hwm54112, I'll be up and running in...one of these days. =)

08-28-2006, 06:40 PM	#1 (permalink)
StationPayne Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 29 OS: WinXP	I installed 300gb drive, but can only use 128gb What I have: WinXP Home Edition, service pack 2 2GB Ram Master HDD 300gb (seagate ultra ATA) Slave HDD 160g (seagate ultra ATA) Motherboard (unknown) My Problem: I just installed a brand new Seagate Ultra ATA 300 GB drive. I made it my master drive and kept my old drive 160 GB as a slave. Unfortunately, when I go to "My Computer", I only see a maximum space of 128 GB for each of the drives. My Questions: Can someone please tell me how to unlock the full capacity of my new 300 GB drive? I also have a second 300gb drive I want to install as a slave drive to replace my 160gb drive. Can someone help me use the full storage space of that one, too (if the solution to my master drive is the same to the problem with my slave drive) ? Last edited by StationPayne; 08-28-2006 at 06:46 PM.

08-28-2006, 07:13 PM	#2 (permalink)
Lead3 Mentor Hardware Team Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Florida, USA Posts: 1,378 OS: 98SE,2000,XP SP3,VISTA SP2 x64 & x86, Windows 7 x64 & x86 My System	Hi, Right click My computer, then click on Manage, then disk management. What does it show here? Edit: Make sure you have LBA support enabled in the BIOS. Paul Last edited by Lead3; 08-28-2006 at 07:23 PM.

08-28-2006, 09:09 PM	#3 (permalink)
StationPayne Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 29 OS: WinXP	It says under Disk Management: Layout - Partition Type - Basic File Type - NTFS Status - Healthy (system) Capacity - 128.00 GB Free Space - 28.06 GB % Free - 21% Fault Tolerance - No Overhead - 0% At the bottom it says I have 151.46 GB Unallocated, but other than that information I don't know how to check the BIOS. I think I can't get the full storage capacity from my 300gb drive because I don't have an updated BIOS, and I have no idea how to update my BIOS either. How do I check if LBA is enabled or not, and how do I enable LBA in my BIOS? I feel so helpless. Last edited by StationPayne; 08-28-2006 at 09:14 PM.

08-30-2006, 01:30 PM	#12 (permalink)
StationPayne Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 29 OS: WinXP	As for using the Seagate utilities that come in the box with the hard-drive, the instruction booklet told me to install DiscWizard for Windows (which I did) and then use that program to install and partition the my new Seagate hard-drives (which I also did). Yet my master drive is still limited to 128 GB of space even though my service pack 2 allows for higher storage drives. What would happen if I simply re-install Windows XP ? If I selected to reinstall WinXP and keep all of my current data on my drives, will it repair\reinstall over everything and remember the installation of Service Pack 2, allowing me to take full use of my 300 GB drive, or still limit it to 128 GB ? My DVD-rom and CD-rom drives are labelled E and F. I have the master drive C which shows: 128 GB healthy and 151.46 Unallocated And next I have my slave drive F which shows: 279.46 GB healthy What would happen if I right-click and create a "New partition" on the unallocated space of my master drive? Will it create a new drive G or H, acting as if my single master drive has been split into two partioned drives? If so, then would I still be able to install all my software programs and run them directly off of my master drive if memory goes beyond 128 GB? Or will my computer behave as if I have drive 1 master (128gb), drive 2 slave (279.46gb), and drive 3 slave (151.46gb)? Last edited by StationPayne; 08-30-2006 at 01:37 PM.

08-30-2006, 01:41 PM	#13 (permalink)
crazijoe Registered User Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Omaha, The Center of the Universe Posts: 7,632 OS: WinXP, Win2K3 My System	If your XP install cd does not have SP2 in it, you will need to make a slip streamed install CD that will have SP2 integrated with it. http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase...slipstream.asp This will be the only way you can install XP and use the entire drive space for your OS. I usually advise against using DDO as it can make recovery of data next to impossible. Yes you can partition the unallocated space. This will give you another "drive" in my computer. What drive letter it will receive will be entirely up to you. __________________ Microsoft MCSA + Messaging, MVP, A+, Network+ http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b3...other/Help.jpg Do you want a real Republican? HDD diagnostic tools / HDD data recovery software

08-28-2006, 10:45 PM	#4 (permalink)
Lead3 Mentor Hardware Team Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Florida, USA Posts: 1,378 OS: 98SE,2000,XP SP3,VISTA SP2 x64 & x86, Windows 7 x64 & x86 My System	Hi, During the startup POST the screen should say to enter setup press DEL or f2 or something. This is how to enter the BIOS. What type computer do you have? Also under disk management does it show any unallocated space in the graphic display next to Disk 0 or 1 ,etc.?

08-28-2006, 11:37 PM	#5 (permalink)
hwm54112 TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 2,233 OS: WINXP	If you cannot enable LBA, nor update bios, the seagate disc wizard utilities will install a ddo (dynamic disk overlay) to overcome the drive size barrier or you can purchase a pci drive controller card that contains it's own bios to overcome the limit. The controller card is the best choice. The overlay's work fine but add a layer of interpretation that can make recovery operations more problematic and hamper/prevent the use of some disc utilities if the occassion ever arises

08-29-2006, 11:48 AM	#8 (permalink)
StationPayne Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 29 OS: WinXP	Will partitioning my Unallocated space on my master drive split it into 2 drives, making it drive-C and drive-F or something? Because my master drive I'm using right now is drive-C, my slave drive is drive-F, and my 2 DVD-CD Rom drives are labelled drive-D and drive-E. I installed 2 new Seagate Ultra ATA 300 GB drives. Under Disk-Management, my Master Drive says I have 128 GB healthy and it also shows 151.46 GB Unallocated. However, my Slave Drive says I have 279.46 GB healthy, but nothing is Unallocated. As for booting up my PC, do I need to hit ESC, F1, or F2 before the Windows logo comes up (with the blue lines loading)? When I try to hit keys to enter BIOS mode or SYSTEM SETUP mode, I always try to hit them when the blue\green lines are loading at the Windows logo. I only have about 5-6 secs before the Windows logo appears, so do I have to be quick about hitting keys? My PC is WinXP Home Edition, Intel Pentium 4 (3.06 Ghz), 2gb RAM. I think my motherboard is an Intel Brownsville 830 series or something...I think it's an older model because it's not listed as a current model on the Intel website. I don't have PCI express capabilities either.

08-29-2006, 10:58 PM	#10 (permalink)
StationPayne Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 29 OS: WinXP	I entered BIOS setup upon booting up my PC, I checked my both my Primary and my Slave drives. Both say "LBA Enabled = Supported" or something like that, but it does say that LBA is supported. If in BIOS mode it states that LBA is supported and under both my Master and Slave drives it shows I have total memory of 300 GB, then why can't my Master Drive exceed more than 128 GB? Also, why is my Slave drive able to store up to 279 GB, but my Master drive can only go up to 128 GB? Is it because when I copied my files over to my new Master drive it also copied over Windows update information, somehow still limiting my storage space to 128 GB? Please help, how do I get full use of the storage on my Master drive?

09-01-2006, 01:26 PM	#14 (permalink)
StationPayne Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 29 OS: WinXP	So, I've checked if LBA support is enabled (which it is), looking for the right WinXP service packs (i have SP 2), and discovering that my old master drive's information was copied\cloned over to my new 300gb master drive, limiting the storage to 128gb. While my new slave drive is able to go up to 271.56 GB out of the 300 GB. What are my options for retrieving the 151.46 Unallocated space on my 300gb master drive? If I right-click and "new partition" the unallocated space on my master drive, my computer will behave as if I have 1 master and 2 slaves...and I don't want that. So what do I do? Do I need to buy one of those PCI card things that allow me to use large HDD? Do I need to download and install the Intel Application Accelerator? Or do I just live with my 128gb space that I have? I don't know what to do anymore.

09-01-2006, 01:35 PM	#15 (permalink)
crazijoe Registered User Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Omaha, The Center of the Universe Posts: 7,632 OS: WinXP, Win2K3 My System	To merge the 2 partition you will need to buy a third party program like Partition Magic. The only other way is to use a WinXP SP2 install CD and re-install your OS. My thoughts.. If this was mine, I would back up any important data onto the slave drive and reload a fresh copy of WinXP. __________________ Microsoft MCSA + Messaging, MVP, A+, Network+ http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b3...other/Help.jpg Do you want a real Republican? HDD diagnostic tools / HDD data recovery software

09-01-2006, 01:37 PM	#16 (permalink)
crazijoe Registered User Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Omaha, The Center of the Universe Posts: 7,632 OS: WinXP, Win2K3 My System	BTW, 272GB is the prox. formatted capacity of a 300GB drive. __________________ Microsoft MCSA + Messaging, MVP, A+, Network+ http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b3...other/Help.jpg Do you want a real Republican? HDD diagnostic tools / HDD data recovery software

09-01-2006, 02:39 PM	#17 (permalink)
hwm54112 TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 2,233 OS: WINXP	If your old master drive is still intact, format and reclone the new drive using the dos version of the seagate utilities or use xxclone and you will have full use of the drive. If that's not possible, clone the new master to the new slave (assuming it's empty), format the master and clone it back again using either tool above and you will have full use of both drives. I know it seems like alot of work but it's simpler than what's going on I suspect the whole problem has arisen from using discwizard for windows or having missed the checkbox that indicates you will be using service pack 1 or higher when setting up the drive. When I used discwizard for windows I just didn't like the interface, don't like setting up drives in windows anyway, and did the "dos" version. Since you have a working windows, xxclone works great, just make sure to check the three boxes on the advanced setup page. Bill

09-01-2006, 05:17 PM	#18 (permalink)
StationPayne Registered User Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 29 OS: WinXP	Ok, thx for ALL of the info everyone! I've got to work a lot on my hard-drives. Because of the help from crazijoe and hwm54112, I'll be up and running in...one of these days. =)