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Vista vs. Hard drive

Forum Windows Vista : Vista General Discussion - Vista vs. Hard drive

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Hey guys, I'm in need of some help. A long story short, I decided to build my own computer, I checked everything was in order and compatible with Vista, I think it all is but heres my problem...

I have Vista Home Premium 64 OEM, I put the disc in, it starts the installation. I enter my serial key and proceed to choosing what hard drive I'd like to install it to. Now here's where I'm confused, my hard drive is 320gb, on the list it's displayed as being 128gb and Vista won't let me install to it saying something about no drives meeting the criteria. I followed a guide about how to create a partition via the Vista installation... I get another error saying it could not create the partition. As well as that my bios notes the hard drive as being 136gb.

I have another XP based machine that I'm using now so I can swap the hard drive back and forth if need be to carry out tasks I wouldnt be able to do in DOS alone, and heres a link to the drive I'm using:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/120291

Do I need to change it over to NTFS or whatever? If so how do I do that and on what machine would it be best to do it on? The one currently running fine on XP or the one with no OS?

Thanks!

Message edited by craig1985 on 08-02-2008 at 12:17:57 AM

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If you partition and format it NTFS under XP it should work fine in Vista.

Did you try the 'tools' section on the Vista install screen? I'd delete existing partitions there and then partition and format anew.

------------------------------ tehhardpro wrote :

notherdude u have an old hand. Having an old hand doesnt make sence. Cuz its old. get a new one.. seems like ur hand doesnt understand what it is writing. So placve it in ur rig instead of vista human orgnoids will amke more sense
Reply to notherdude

Everything is greyed out on the vista menu other than a button titled "New" which from what I can tell allows me to set a partition size, no matter what I do though I get an error telling me the partition could not be made.

What would be the best way to format the drive in XP? Would I plug it in, load XP and use the disk management tool? Perhaps someone would be able to give me a step by step rundown on the process? I just don't want to mess anything up, thanks alot!

Message edited by craig1985 on 08-02-2008 at 12:34:41 AM

Reply to craig1985

Safest way I know how to do it, boot cdrom with xp, format and all with ntfs, not the fast one, install xp (in case of complications from stoping instalation, which is included in the format process of xp from what I remember) once finished, do the same thing with the vista disk (as notherdude suggested). Although it might be an issue with your mobo's bios, if the board is new, needing to be updated, ram configurations, or even bios settings, I personally would only be able to tell if the above suggestion fails.

Reply to the associate

Your hard drive is not properly configured in BIOS. The fact that you have a 320GB drive and your BIOS only sees 136GB should be a huge red flag for you. Check the jumper settings on the drive... some drives have jumper settings which limit the size it reports to the BIOS. Also, you may have to update your BIOS before it will recognize the full 320GB. No matter how you format it, your OS is never going to report a drive bigger than what your BIOS is reporting. (At least not without a drive overlay)

Formatting with XP isn't going to help your situation. Get that drive properly recognized in BIOS, then worry about getting it formatted.

------------------------------ Desktop: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit; Intel Q6600 CPU; E-VGA 780i SLI motherboard; E-VGA E-GeForce 8800GT; OCZ Vista 4GB dual-channel kit; Ultra X2 750W power supply; 2 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500GB in RAID 0. Laptop: Acer Aspire 8730-6314;
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