I'm running Windows XP with SP2 and a 200MB hard drive. I installed a second 160 MB drive and it will not format beyond 128MB. I have used the Manage feature in Windows to unformat the drive and have used western Digital Data Lifeguard tools to try and reformat but it still will not format to 160 MB. The drive is now shown as "dynamic" (which I don't want) and 128 MB unformatted. Is there a way to remove everything that was put on the drive to get it back to the "raw" state it was in when it left the factory? Any help would be greatly appreciated as i have been struggling with this for almost a week.
2007-03-22 05:14:56 · 5 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Desktops
i think u mean GB ... but anyway ... sounds like u may have an older board with a bios limitation of 128 or so ... so update ur bios .. or u will have to partition it into chunks ..
2007-03-22 05:18:50 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
You are confusing Megabytes "Mb" and Gigabytes "Gb".
You have a 200Gb and a 160Gb hard drive.
When you were in the manage feature in windows, you did pretty much exactly what you are asking us to tell you to do.
When you unformatted the drive in the manage feature, you actually deleted the partition and made the disk "raw".
You should only have to repeat what you did and delete all the partitions on that new drive. From there you just go to "format" on the same menu as "Delete Partition" and select the full drive to be formatted as one drive.
The reason it would only do 128 before is because you most likely had service pack 1 still installed when you tried to format. Service pack one had a limit of 128Gb partitions.
Though, you do have the OS installed on a 200Gb drive that is partitioned larger than 128 (I am assuming). So that kind of throws a monkey wrench into the mix.
2007-03-22 05:28:05 · answer #2 · answered by Bjorn 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's not your hard drive. Your BIOS doesn't support hard drives larger than 128GB. Check the computer manufacturer's web site for latest BIOS.
2007-03-22 05:19:20 · answer #3 · answered by ELfaGeek 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You could try the KILL DISK utility. Or the Ultimate Boot Disk 3.4. Search for both @ www.freewarefiles.com. Ultimate Boot Disk may have KILL DISK included.
2007-03-22 05:19:27 · answer #4 · answered by B-man 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
application recovery ?
2007-03-22 05:20:21 · answer #5 · answered by martinmm 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋