I have a 300 gig internal hard drive, I hear that windows xp pro can not support this size. What should I add?

Question

I have a 300 gig internal hard drive, Do I need a certain, cable, software or attachment in order for windows to read it as a seperate 300 gig hard drive??

Answer 1

the very first version of windows xp released in 2001 did not support drives larger than 137 GB. this was resolved with service pack 1 ( in 2002 i think ) and every version since supports much larger hard drives.

if you are unsure if you are running windows xp service pack 1 or later (running at least service pack 2 is HIGHLY recommended!!! ) - right click on my computer on your desktop and select properties. this should indicate what service pack (if any) you are running. if you are still unsure, go to:

http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com and run any and all available updates. they are free and very very very recommended for your safety and security.

if you have a problem with your computer seeing the drive, it most likely lies with your BIOS. the BIOS is the software that runs directly off of the a chip (ROM chip) on your mainboard in your computer. this is the very first thing that gets initialized when you turn on the power before turning over control to the operating system (windows xp in this case). you definitely want to make sure your BIOS supports larger hard drives. if your computer was purchased before 2002 it may not support drives greater than 137 GB. this, fortunetly in many cases, can be rectified by upgrading your BIOS. nearly every mainboard manufacturer provides free BIOS updates (they call it 'flashing' the BIOS with a new version). The trick here is finding out EXACTLY what make and model your mainboard is and downloading the correct BIOS from the manufacturer's web site. this is *critical*. if you flash your mainboard with the wrong version, you will kill your computer. for good. there are no take backs here. (think of it like running your car without any oil and destroying the engine - there is no fixing it, just buying a new engine).

I would highly recommend finding an IT professional to upgrade your BIOS for you if that's necessary. if not, well, like I said, the trickiest part is finding the make and model of your mainboard (also called motherboard). You may have to open your computer to find the printed make and model (I have a gigabyte GA7XD-R for example. it will be something like that). If you are lucky enough to have a Dell, IBM, HP, Gateway or other major brand computer, then you can probably find the BIOS update through that vendor. otherwise, good luck.

honestly - it's 2007. if your computer is old enough to not support a 300 GB hard drive it might be time to upgrade.

Answer 2

Hey man!

Yeap! U are right. XP pro does not support bigger Drives.
Upgrade your XP to Servicepack 2. Then U will see your Drive in Full capacity. Also U can Use Third party tools like "partition magic" to get this done. I also Installed a bigger drive sometime back on XP pro. And this is what I did.

All the best and Have fun!!!!

Answer 3

it should work fine, but if windows for some reason doesnt read it you can boot from your windows xp cd and when you have the option to format the drive you can also create a partition, spliting the physical drive into what windows treats as 2 smaller drives. you can also do this to install 2 versions of windows, or 2 different operating systems(linux etc) on the same physical hard disk, it gives you a choice when the computer is booting if you have more than one option.

Answer 4

The 137GB limit xp pre sp1

"LBA stands for Logical Block address. This was originally only 24 bits for ATA/ATAPI devices, which meant that the largest hard drive you could use was 137.4 GB (Gigabytes). Now that hard drives have increased beyond this size changes where needed. So came along 48 bit LBA. This has increased the maximum size of hard drives to 144,000,000 gigabytes."
http://www.largeharddrivesupport.windowsreinstall.com/index.htm

Answer 5

WinXP Pro will support those large drives. If a person really wanted to split it up though, one could partition the drive with two 150 GB segment for two virtual drives.

Answer 6

I have not personally heard of this, and have personally seen more than one XP machine (Pro and Home) with 500GB hard drives.

Answer 7

No, it will read it as long as you have updated to at least Service Pack 1.

Answer 8

I can give you a link that deals with various problems of computer. You can fix many problems by selecting a suitable program and exploring your problems. Please visit http://fixit.in

Answer 9

get windows vista.

Answer 10

do nothing it will work fine