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200GB HD down to 127GB after format? is this right?

C

civilicious

Senior member
I just bought a used WD 200GB HD from an individual here on AT. After formatting the HD, the total size recognized in windows is 127GB. is this normal? how can i fix it?

any help is greatly appreciated.
 
Originally posted by: SuPrEIVIE
i think you need sp1 intalled
Click to expand...
Bingo. Update to the latest BIOS(the current one is probably fine, but why risk it?), and make sure you're runing at least WinXP SP1, and you'll be fine.
 
Originally posted by: whatever
you must be running ata133 to recognize drives over that size. to fix this, you need to get a controller card that supports it.
Click to expand...
No, ATA/133 should always support 48 bit LBA, but so do many ATA/100 motherboards, and controllers like the Promise ones bundled with a pair of WD drives I bought.

If the BIOS shows 127 GB, then you need to update the BIOS or get a controller card. If the BIOS shows 186+ GB then you need to update Windows.

This comes up a couple of times a week, you can search for the other threads if you want more details. Also microsoft.com has an articles on "large drive" and "48 bit LBA".
 
I think this should get a sticky too. I had the same problem and was able to find numerous topics with the same problem popping up from time to time. It should save on the number of threads popping up!
 
Basically what you need is

-A BIOS that supports 48-bit LBA
-Windows 2000 SP3 or SP4 or Windows XP SP1
-The EnableBigLBa parameter set correctly if using Win2000 which you can read about here.
 
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