XP with SP2 won't pick up my full 250GB, only 127MB

jmp · 15 Jan 2007 at 18:11

Is there a fix out there to correct my above problem without re-formatting my hdd?

Supposedly XP SP2 sorted this out but i am running SP2 and my drive has not been detected at the full 250GB, only 127MB.

Firegod · 15 Jan 2007 at 18:19

Hmm, the only thing I can think of (and I may be way off here) is something called "LBA Large/Big Drive Enabler" but I would have thought XP SP2 would work fine with large drives.

Is it just possible that the drive is not partitioned properly?

mosfet · 15 Jan 2007 at 18:29

127MB or 127GB?

If GB then it might've been formatted previously with an OS without LBA 48bit addressing or your IDE controller doesn't support it (highly unlikely).

rpstewart · 15 Jan 2007 at 18:37

mosfet said:
it might've been formatted previously with an OS without LBA 48bit addressing

Yeah sounds like the box has been installed with vanilla XP and SP2 has been added afterwards.

There are 2 ways round this without reformatting:

1) Use Partition Magic to extend the existing c: drive into the free space.

2) *This should work but I've never tried it* You should be able to convert the disk to a dynamic disk in Disk Management and then extend the partition again within Disk Management.

silversurfer · 15 Jan 2007 at 20:12

Its safer to split a drive into seperate partitions anyway. Partition magic will let you create a new drive letter, etc from the unused space

thefishdude · 15 Jan 2007 at 20:49

is this a brand new hardrive ? if so is it sata 2 ?? and does you motherboard support sata2 ?? if not try changing the jumper on back of thd rive to sata 1 setting

rpstewart · 15 Jan 2007 at 21:34

This is a windows issue, not a hardware one.

gumbald · 15 Jan 2007 at 23:35

I'd go with the Partition Magic or Acronis option, external to Windows. Safest bet.

(Can PM boot from CD like Acronis?)

Lee · 16 Jan 2007 at 13:06

I had this problem with the 200GB Seagate drive I installed over 12 months ago. It's a known problem with XP. Seagate have a downloadable tool to fix this for their drives. Not sure if it will work for other vendors.

HangTime · 17 Jan 2007 at 00:26

Is it correctly detected in BIOS?

harris1986 · 17 Jan 2007 at 09:08

i had the same problem on my seagate 250gb

, only choice i had was to create a seperate partition which i didn't mind anyway or what i have done is get a raptor for windows + games then have the seagate plugged in seperate and it's fully detected as a 250gb drive!

*note i did try creating a slipstream of xp + sp2 on one disk but this still had no effect