I just installed a 300 gig hd, but i could only format it to 131 gig when i installed winxp?

Question

now i have sp2 installed and somewhere i read that i can repartition it to get the full 300 gig on 1 partition, my main c drive. how do i do this?

it is a seagate and it said the software that came with it could undo the 131 gig limit that windows sets, but it didnt.

my bios doesnt need updating, this is a brand new board.... it just came out. it is windows.... as always, limiting me. just dont know why the seagate software didnt work. i put together a system and loaded windows on the new HD but when i was all done with it, i looked at the drive in my computer and low and behold, 131 gigs. what the heck happened to the 300 gig one that i bought! i tried creating an extended partition but thats not what i want. i just want one big 300 gig c drive.

Answer 1

XP without a service pack cannot see more than 128 GB (computer measured) or 137 GB (advertising measured) space. What you should have done is slipstreamed Service Pack 2 into a new CD and installed it from there.

There is the possibility that your BIOS does not recognize drives over 128 GB - in which case you need to update your BIOS or buy an add-on PCI card that can support the larger drive.

As someone already mentioned, you can use partitioning software such as Partition Magic or Partition Commander to extend the C: drive - but be warned - any time you mess around with partitions like this you COULD lose everything.

Answer 2

Repartitioning your hard drive would mean reformatting it, since to do so, all the information would be disregarded to create the partition, then afterwards the new partitions would be formatted to wipe out the old data. This is a one way process: you can't partition a drive without formatting without the aid of third party software like Partition Magic.

Essentially to repartition the drive, you will have to start over. Back up your critical data and get your stuff off the HD before repartitioning your drive: once the partitions are set, they can't be changed without reformatting the drive again. (just as if you have one partition as you do now, and want to make more of them)

Another solution: is this a Western Digital drive? It comes with Data Lifeguard Tools, which can install a abstraction layer to bypass the Windows XP limitation of 131 GB and make it a 300 GB system drive. Check out www.westerndigital.com for more information on that. Unfortunately it's a feature on Western Digital: I don't know about Seagate, Toshiba, Matsushita or other manufacturers that make hard disks.

Answer 3

You need some partitioning software. I would strongly recommend partition magic (Norton) since it takes car of making sure you don't lose any data. However, you can take a look to the page below to see some other software which can do the same.

Once you have the software, it's quite simple resizing your hd, select the drive, select the new size and click on apply changes (this can vary from one software to another).

Answer 4

i had my vision , you computer does suppert it and operating system also support your 300 GB hard Disk.
You can confirm it from BIOS Setup.

goto "control panal" and then "administrator tool"
Run "Computer Management"
move to "Disk Management"

No,w you can see you hard listed there.

"Right click" on it and then select New Partition
Select Extended partition
it will show the remain space and by click next, and then finisfsh

again right click on it, select new partition, it will show the remain space, just click next, Select the parition type, and click ok/format.
and you are done.

Muhammad Abid Azeemi
Network Administrator
CECOS University

Answer 5

You either rushed through the HD installation and did something wrong, or you need to check for an update to your BIOS.

Answer 6

I did the same with my 160 & that happened but when I needed them, they were there and ready for use.You actually have the other gigs, they just aren't needed.

Answer 7

UPDATE YOUR BIOS!!!