Format will only show 120gb of 160gb

[Tobolo]

I know this is simple but I cannot remember why for the life of me.

Got Windows XP pro on a comp. 80gb primary and 160gb secondary.

Windows will only format as 120gb on the secondary.

What can I do to get this extra space?

 

[mechBgon]

If you haven't installed a Service Pack on WinXP yet, install SP2. Any good?

 

[jough]

Windows XP, pre-SP2 (or maybe pre-SP1) will only recognise the first 120Gb of an LBA drive.

Installing SP2 after the fact will let you address the rest of the space and partition it, but if you want to have all of the available drive space on a single partition (with one drive letter) you'll need to create an SP2 slipstream install CD. It's pretty easy to do. I recently did it to install my new 250Gb SATA drive, and it's no big thing. Here's a link:

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

 

[Tobolo]

So I cant format it through windows after I install SP2 and access it as one partition? This is a secondary (storage) drive.

 

[mechBgon]

First of all, have you tried deleting the 120GB partition and making a new 160GB partition, using Windows Disk Management? Right-click My Computer > Manage and go down the Computer Management window to Disk Management, and there you go.

Otherwise you might want to try installing Windows with the big drive not in the system. Patch to SP2. Then put the big drive into the system after SP2's installed. But hopefully that won't be necessary.

 

[jough]

Oh, you can if you're willing to repartition/reformat it, sure.

If it's your C: drive, though, your only option is to re-install with the slipstream CD or use PartitionMagic to combine the two partitions (which can be dangerous).

If it's just a secondary drive - then once you upgrade/update to SP2 you're fine to repartition the drive and reformat it with the standard Windows Disk Management tool.

 

[RebateMonger]

What these guys are saying is correct. XP SP1 first allowed XP support for drives larger than 137GB.

 

[Tobolo]

Awesome thanks. I had tried it before and it hadn't worked. This time it works great. Thanks guys!