400Gb Hard drive preparation on new system

[dinkytoy]

Hi
Can anyone assist me with a problem that I have in getting my system to recognise the full 400gb of my hard drive?

This is my first home build and everything has gone well except for partitioning and formatting my hard drive.

I have a Western Digital Caviar SE16 400GB SATA II 7200RPM 16MB Cache. The rest of my system consist of:
1 - Motherboard = Asus P5B-E Intel P965 LGA775
2 - CPU = Intel Core 2 DUO E6400 2.13GHz Conroe 1066MHz FSB 2MB L2 Cache L
3 - Memory = LEMEL DDR2 1GB PC2-6400 (x2)
4 - Graphics = Radeon X1650 Pro 256MB PCI Express
5 - Lite-on 165H6S 16X Dual Layer DVDRW
6 - 450w PSU and iCute Case

When I tried to install my windows XP Pro (which is an older version still requiring SP1 & SP2) Windows only recognises about 137Gb on my hard drive.

I then tried the Western Digital download to create a bootable CD with the Data Lifeguard Tools 11.2 for DOS (CD) downloaded from WD and burned to a CD.

However, when I boot from this CD I just end up at the C prompt of DR-DOS.

If I then run FDISK the maximum size of a partition is only about 8Gb.

So, Question - How do I go about preparing my 400Gb HD for use?

Thanks

 

[Mondoman]

As you've found out, the earlier revisions of XP can only see 137GB or so of hard disk space; here are some options:
1) Buy an upgraded version of XP.
2) Create your own "slipstreamed" version of the XP install disc you already have. Google "create xp sp2 slipstream" and you should find free tools to help with this. However, you'll need some technical ability. OTOH, it's free, so why not try?
3) Go ahead and install your current version of XP on the 137GB partition, leaving the rest of the hard disk empty. After installing and downloading all updates, buy a partition editing tool like "Partition Magic" and use it to expand the 137GB partition to take over the whole disk, without losing any data. I really like PM.

 

[blunc]

you should just install XP to the 137gb partition it is currently limited to then get the SP1 & SP2 updates installed. once that is done you should be able to go into disk management and partition(and format) the rest of your drive.

IMHO, if this is your primary drive you are better off with at least two partitions anyway, load your OS and programs on the C partition then store your games and other files on the next partition. your system will probably run much cleaner if you configure the windows temp and pagefile to the non C partition.

 

[dinkytoy]

Many thanks to Mondoman and Blunx for the very quick and excellent advice. Much appreciated.
Lance

 

[mesarectifier]

Yeah, do the above and create an updated installer disc with large disc support. However, this is a new build, so don't bother buying PartitionMagic just for this - although it's a simply superb bit of software - because it's not worth the $50 or whatever it costs just for the sake of spending an hour reinstalling Windoze.