WD Caviar Blue not showing all space in XP

[deadpickle]

I just purchased a Western Digital Caviar Blue SATA 320 GB hard drive. All the drives on my comp went dead. I installed Windows XP to the drive and noticed that only 130 GB of the drive was shown. I cant seem to get at the remainder of the drive to get the whole 320 GB. WHat is the deal here? I have never setup a SATA drive before so did I miss something?

 

[jsc]

The original XP didn't support large drives. I think that was added in SP1 or SP2.

Unfortunately, I think you will need to reinstall Windows. This time when you install WinXP, make a partition of about 120 GB. Leave the rest unallocated. Install XP and SP1 - SP3. Then go back and allocate the remainder of the disk.

You will find that you can work with the larger partitions now.

 

[Hawkeye22]

You can also use nlite to slipstream SP2 into a windows boot disk. Then when you install from this CD it will know how to utilize large drives.

 

[jsc]

Or Autostreamer.

Hawkeye, I thought about suggesting slipstreaming but we are talking to a relatively inexperienced (at least, in this area) user.

deadpickle, if you want to try this, google both autostreamer and nlite to see which one you want to use. Either way, you will need the IT version of SP2 - about 270 MB.

 

[dextermat]

Before trying any of the above, I have a question for you.

Did you partition the drive when you reinstalled windows ?

got to the control pannel -->administrative tools --> computer management

then under storage select disk management and look for unallocated partition.

left click on it and select new volume and follow the steps.

if you don't have any unallocated partition you drive might be damaged.

good luck