MSI K8N Neo4 - HDD > 120GB?

[Roostin247]

Hi,
I just installed a PATA Maxtor 160GB 7200RPM HDD (I don't have the model info in front of me) along with my Neo4. I let the XP Pro install format the drive, then once the install was complete I found that the HDD size is only being seen by windows as 128GB. The Neo4 BIOS reports the correct size. This sounds like a LBA issue? Do I need to install the third party RAID drivers (the F6 trick) when installing XP? I am not utilizing RAID, so I skipped that part.

Thanks.

 

[saillard]

No problem with the MOBO, I have the same with a 200GB drive.
You probably have only XP SP1, the SP2 fix that problem or you can keep the SP1 and add an entry in the registry, I do not remember the entry but I did that first and it worked. Search google.

 

[Roostin247]

The XP CD is the original XP (pre-SP1). I did install SP2. The drive showed 128GB before and after SP2. I just pulled this 160GB drive out of my old PC that had the same version of XP that I am currently using. This old PC (ASUS A7N8X Deluxe) showed the whole 160GB which would lead me to believe that it's not a problem with the drive or the OS...

 

[Jeraden]

Was this a brand new unpartioned drive? If so, maybe when you had xp format it for you to begin with it only made the partion size 120GB and left the rest as unpartioned space?

Otherwise, no idea.

 

[Roostin247]

Nope, I chose the "Use all unpartioned space...." option

 

[Roostin247]

Just to follow up on this thread, you must use the F6 option when installing XP in order to install 3rd party drivers. The floppy that comes with the board that has the NVidia drivers on it contains 2 entries: 1) NVidia Mass Storage Device Driver and 2) NVidia RAID Driver. You must install #1 in order to gain access to disk space > 128GB. I did not install #2.

 

[DerKaiser]

The original XP CD will only see up to 137 Gb of space for the install. You can take your original XP CD and slipstream SP2 onto it as described here and burn a new XPSP2 CD. You can then use the XPSP2 CD to reformat and install. The installer will then be able to use the entire partition. Actually, you can just slipstream SP1 if you prefer.

If you want to format the remainder of your hard drive as a separate partition, go to Start Menu-->Settings-->Control Panel-->Administrative Tools-->Computer Management. On the left side, click disk managment. You should then see a graphical depiction of your drives, including your hard drive. The remainder of the drive should show up as unallocated space. Right click it and choose "format".