Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Disks > Hard drive only showing 128GB on my 250GB HD

Hard drive only showing 128GB on my 250GB HD

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Hard drive only showing 128GB on my 250GB HD

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summitone   08-19-2006 at 05:28:36 PM

Does anyone have an idea why my SATA HD would only show 128GB??? I have the P5W-DH motherboard, all settings seem to be correct. I have the HD plugged into the SATA1 port (red) so that should not be an issue. Any ideas?? Bad HD ???

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Heyyou27   08-19-2006 at 05:47:45 PM
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Install Windows XP Service Pack 1 or later.

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Redeemer   08-19-2006 at 05:49:29 PM
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You might have a SATA 2 HD, check to see if you have a SATA 2 port on your motherboard if not, then you might have to set the jumper on you HD to SATA 150. Actually the software on your HD should do this automatically. So again set the jumper on your HD to a trafer rate of 150 or SATA 1. If this still doesn't work use a program like Acronis to set the partition.

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melarcky   08-19-2006 at 05:50:17 PM
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well it could be your slave and master jumper.. take your hd out and you will see right next to where you plug the power in will be a 4 little pins and a black plastic ... wel llike case over it it will be really tine. if its not on the right pin it can lower your hd amount, like with my 40gb it will be read as 32gb

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summitone   08-19-2006 at 06:02:34 PM
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The HD i have is a Western Digital. Here is the link.. http://www.newegg.com/product/prod [...] 6822144701
I don't think its the jumper settings because with SATA you shouldnt need jumpers. Its a good possibility though that it could be I have a SATA2 drive and my motherboard doesnt support it. I will check on that.

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summitone   08-19-2006 at 06:07:01 PM
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If the interface is SATA 3.0Gb/s, does that mean its SATA2? Sorry for the dumb question, first time working with SATA :oops:

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summitone   08-19-2006 at 06:15:59 PM
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OK, researched the SATA2 issue, My board should support it, specs are here . I am installing with WINXP SP2. The odd thing is, my bios sees the HD as 250GB.

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SomeJoe7777   08-19-2006 at 08:01:50 PM
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I take it you're doing a fresh installation of Windows XP on this 250GB drive (correct me if this is not right).

If so, you need a Windows XP CD containing SP1 or SP2 on the CD. If your Windows XP CD is a Release To Manufacturing (RTM) CD (i.e. no service packs), then you cannot format an IDE/SATA drive with a partition larger than 137GB/127GiB during Windows setup.

There are 3 solutions:

1. Go into the system BIOS, change the ICH7R mode from Legacy/IDE to SATA Native/AHCI. Then download and put the Intel ICH7R SATA AHCI drivers on a floppy disk. Run Windows setup, hit "F6" at the first part of Windows setup to tell it you have a manufacturer-provided driver disk. When Windows comes up and says that it can't find any mass storage controllers in your system, hit "S", and give it the floppy disk. Select the SATA AHCI driver. That driver and mode will allow you to format larger partitions during setup.

2. Format and install Windows on a 137GB/127GiB partition during Windows setup. After installation, update the Windows installation to SP1 or higher. Then resize the partition to the full size of the drive using Partition Magic, BiNG, or the diskpart utility in the Windows XP recovery console.

3. Create a Windows XP SP2 slipstreamed CD, which is a Windows XP CD that already has SP2 installed on it. Use this CD to install Windows, which will allow you to format the drive with a larger partition.

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summitone   08-19-2006 at 08:19:14 PM
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Thanks for the advice SomeJoe! I'll work on it and let you know if it worked.

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summitone   08-19-2006 at 08:34:43 PM
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It worked!!!! Thanks so much for the advice guys !!! :D

Reply to summitone
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