Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (
More info?)
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>
>
> "Matt Lobegeiger" wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>> Just installed windows XP home onto a new 160gb Western Digital IDE HDD.
>> The
>> bios detects the HDD correctly but windows only shows it as being 128gb.
>> Windows is fully updated with SP2 etc.
>>
>> I've searched around the internet for this problem but haven't found
>> anything so far.
>>
>> Any ideas?
>>
>> matt
"Mark H" <MarkH@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4ED84758-6400-4C3F-A5D2-76C566EEDFDE@microsoft.com...
> This could probably be a new thread but...
>
> Every solution I see to this involves having an install disk with SP2
> integrated. I moved from 80G to 160G drives with nary a problem. This was
> with XP Pro installed and SP2 already updated. I added the 160G drive,
> made
> sure all the stuff my drive would support was turned on in bios and copied
> everything over to it with a Western Digital utility, then I pulled the
> old
> drive.
>
> Just wondering...
Mark H.
There are basically two requirements for the XP OS to recognize
large-capacity drives, i.e., 127-128 GB (binary)/137 GB (decimal), as
follows:
1. The motherboard's BIOS must support large-capacity disks - virtually
every MB manufactured over the past three or four years meets this
requirement; frequently a BIOS upgrade is available for older MBs., and,
2. XP had to be installed with SP1 and/or SP2 at the time of the drive's
installation.
So you can see why the full capacity of your 160 GB drive was recognized by
the system. You installed the drive at the time you had SP2 installed and
your motherboard obviously supported large-capacity disks. That's it. Had
nothing to do with the WD utility in copying over files to the new disk.
Anna