127gb Problem - CURRENT SOLUTIONS DO NOT WORK

I have scoured the net for solutions and tried everything I could find to solve my problem.

Problem - Hard drive is 127gb but should be 320gb

What I have -

Mobo - Asrock 939Dual-SATA2
cpu - amd 64 3000
harddrive - Seagate 320gb SATA ST3320620AS - 3gb/s
memory - 2gb ddr 400

Things I have tried;

1. Updated the bios on the mobo to the current 2.20
2. Used Seagates Diskwizard to load their stuff on and then run the OS setup - this resulted in XP not seeing my harddrive.
3. Had to write ZEROs to the entire drive to get it back
4. installed xp pro with sp1 and then sp2 - still only 127gb
5. installed "reg_48bit_lba.exe" - this did nothing - still only 127gb
6. I tried putting the sata files on a floppy and installing xp and then hitting F6 and installing them - this did nothing.
7. Tried the SATA2 and SATA1 slots.
8. I am now writing ZEROs to the drive ONCE AGAIN

I can not find any other helpful topics on seagate.com or asrock.com or through MS. If anyone knows what I can do other than the above please help me out as I am out of options at this point, thanks in advance. FISH

Keep in mind that you also have to enable LBA in your BIOS for that drive....

That is a know problem in XP. If you don´t have atleast Service Pack 1 when you install the harddrive, then it will only be 127Gb...
Download Service Pack 2 for XP if you haven´t already done that.

If you format a 129Gb+ partition in NTFS using any software you can find, you can force even Win2K into recognizing a 200 GB+ drive - I did.

LBA is enabled in BIOS - otherwise WinXP would be unable to detect it (stupid OS). However drives of more than 128 Gb need 'Large LBA' support from WinXP - which was enabled by default only in SP2 for the Pro version.

If you don't mind partitioning your drive, you can:
- install XP on a 20 Gb partition
- install the registry fix needed to enable large LBA in XP
- create and format a 300 Gb partition

...or use a Linux liveCD to do as I said in my previous post. Yes, it works with a mouse. No, you don't need to enter complicated keyboard codes to run a live distribution like Knoppix. Yes, you'll get a full-fledged GUI. Yes, its partition manager is almost as powerful as PartitionMagic (called Qtparted). No, it costs nothing more than a blank CD.

i dind't know if you done this but after you install SP2 you have to go to the disk management in the admi tools to activate the rest of the hard drive and then format it, if you've done that , that's a weird problem.

Have you tired using Seagates DiscWizard?

http://www.seagate.com/support/dis [...] scwiz.html

OK, I'll read your post next time! :?


Mark

there ya go thats about the easiest thing so far, that and the lenux idea. Just incase you missed how to partition and format a hdd the right way in xp this is how its done step by step.

Start>Control Panel
Adminstrative Tools
click on the Computer management shortcut

this brings up a computer mangement program, look near the bottom for the + sign by the Storage, if its not open, open it.

Higlight the Disk Management this should show you hdd as 127gb partition then about 200gb as unpartitoned unused space.

you then right click on the unpartioned space in the little graphical representation of your hdd and click make partion (not so sure on what exactly it says in the menu options but you shuld get the jist of what im saying when you do this your self)

once you make the partition you right click and say format, then bingo you have your full hdd space.

If you want one full 320gb hdd not two partitions use a friends pc to do this but you will need to delete the 127gb partion you have then make one big one.

your only other option is to slipstream sp2 with your xp disk Im not going to go over that just google "slipstream xp" and you should find instructions on how to do that.

good luck

not sure. slipstreaming SP2 doesn't always modify the installer's registry (the installer hasn't changed since original XP, and is a small NT kernel with a text GUI). You need to modify its registry too.

Try XPlite to slipstream it, and add the Large LBA compatibility check. That would work.