160GB HD with only 127GB???

[Jrdave230]

so it appears ive been havin a few issues with this new computer of mine! but, this issue is strange to me. i have a Samsung 160GB HD and after windows was setup, the C drive is only 127GB. so losing 33GB kinda sucks, so i want it back! anyone help me with this issue?

 

[Ryoga]

You need 48-bit LBA mode support in WinXP and BIOS. You need WinXP SP1 or Win2k SP4. That will allow Windows to address more than 127 GiB of HDD space. If you have that, then you will need to update your motherboard BIOS. If no update exists or the newest update does not add support for 48-bit LBA, then you will need to buy a PCI adapter card that does have support for 48-bit LBA.

MS Link

Note:
160 GB --> 160,000,000,000 bytes since 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes

In Windows it will show up as "149 GB" because to them 1 GB is 2^30 bytes (1,073,741,824 bytes). That is more accurately called a GiB (giga-binary-byte or gibibyte).

Note also:
MS refers to this ias the "137 GB limit". This is the same reason your HDD is sold as "160 GB". 130 GB = 130,000,000,000 bytes --> 127 GiB

 

[Jrdave230]

that sounds good, but i just used PartitionMagic to the extra 22GB; which happened to work very well!

 

[Ryoga]

Did you install SP1 after installing WinXP?

 

[homestarmy]

While we're on the subject... does anyone know if the Maxtor Ultra ATA 100 adapter (Promise Chipset) that was free after MIR a while back ($50-$50) supports over 127GB? I only have 120's for now, but it's a good thing to know for the future...

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: homestarmy
While we're on the subject... does anyone know if the Maxtor Ultra ATA 100 adapter (Promise Chipset) that was free after MIR a while back ($50-$50) supports over 127GB? I only have 120's for now, but it's a good thing to know for the future...

Yes, definately. All of their Ultra100 and newer products support 48-bit LBA. Their Ultra66 does too, in their Windows drivers, but they never released a BIOS update to support it in the card. So the bootable partition on the first HD has to be less than 128 GiB in size. Once inside Windows, the full size is accessable.

 

[cheapherk]

I have the same drive & had the same problem. Download Samsung's drive utility and use it. Your problem will be solved. Samsung Disk Manager

 

[gregdep]

I think it has something to do with the limitations of WinXP.
you will need SP1... or now SP2.