Windows Can't See all of HD Even With SP2

[jeff5]

I have a new WD 640 GB HD. I installed windows service pack 2 on my new machine (old one had it), and it's still seeing only 130GBs. Am I doing something wrong here? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[rdb]

This problem can be caused by 3-4 things. Western Digital's support site covers it. Do you have all the motherboard drivers installed. Could also be in BIOS setting. The support site covers all the options.

 

[goonting]

did you check your BIOS settings? Raid enabled? what's your motherboard specs? Your motherboard is limited to 130GB you might have and old chipset

 

[goonting]

48-bit logical block addressing may not be present with your current ssetup. please post motherboard model and where your hard disk is attached.. is it IDE or sata? onboard chip or pci card attached?

 

[goonting]

• 48-bit LBA-compatible BIOS.
• 137-GB hard disk or larger.
• You must have atleast Windows XP SP1 installed.

all of these must be met for you to use large hard drives

 

[jeff5]

Thanks guys. Not sure about the BIOs it is a brand new ASUS P5Q-SE, and there's not RAID available on it. I'll have to see if I can update the BIOs from ASUS and see if that helps. I'll post what it is in a bit. Thanks again.

 

[allhands]

that mobo should have 48 bit LBA. When you go into disk management what do you see?

 

[MattC]

Go to your control panel, then go to administrative tools. Select and open the computer management tab. From the menu on the left, select Disk Management (you may need to expand the storage option). On the right you should see information about the drives you have. Look for unallocated space. If you do not know what you're doing, post what you see (in detail) here and people can guide you further (assuming the problem is that you simply have not formatted the partition that has the extra space).

If you were not configured to utilize your full HDD when you installed windows, you created a partition containing most of your HDD and installed windows there. You also, by extension, created at least one other partition that has the rest of the space on it - and until you format that partition and assign a drive letter you will not be able to view it.

NOTE: When you attempt to follow the above steps, you may notice that the windows something or other hard drive wizard pops up. There is a wizard that detects that you have hard drives that are not configured for use and it will attempt to guide you through this. That should be a safe way of solving this problem.

 

[huron]

Mattc has it right on the head. I have installed a few drives that won't even show up on the OS until you go through component management and allocate the space.

 

[Winly]

maybe there is some space unallocated, just alloacte it and it will show you the entire space.

 

[jeff5]

Thanks again guys. I forgot about the disk management utility. I updated to SP2, updated my BIOS, and DL'd a utility from WD. It's working now =).

 

[drajfer]

I am having the same problem with my Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA drive. My question is this: When I first bought the drive I hoooked up to a USB enclosure and partitioned it on my old machine (XP Pro SP2). I formated the two partitions at 150GB and 450GB respectively. I then copied most of my data off my old PC onto the new drive's larger partition. When I finished building my new machine (Mobo: EVGA 123-YW-E175-A1 LGA 775 NVIDIA nForce 750i FTW SLI ATX Intel Motherboard) and put in the drive, windows XP only recognized it as a 130GB partition. I formatted this partition thinking that windows was only recognizing the smaller partition I had made on my old machine. After reading this thread I realize what must have happened, but is there any chance of getting the data off of the other partition I made before or is that gone?

 

[Mitzahd]

I have same problem....but i solve it from device manager and i managed to partitionate my 640gb to 480 and 160 so into 2 partitions.....and today i needed format my pc and reinstal windows(i formated my other HDD,on which i had windows instaled) and after i done instaling windows again the same problem ,only 130GB could be seen from the 640GB and UNFORMATED ......unalloced space is 0 now,and i had all my data on the 480GB partition is there any chance i can get it back....?