My brand new 160GB SATA drive only shows 131GB!

[Trente]

O.K. I got my parts today, built it from scratch, every thing works mighty well so far, except my HD. Upon trying to install Windows XP, it only showed 131MB of disc space. I formed a partition in NTFS format at the size of 30GB, did a quick format and installed windows. I then installed drivers for videocard, soundcard and for the motherboard. on device manager everything is sorted just fine, but my hard drive still shows only one partition - the one I have created.

What do I need to do in order to make Windows realize this is a 160GB drive?

Do I have to reinstall everything again, or is there a possibility to use a 3rd party software, such as partition majic in order to overcome the problem?

*Even though my drive is an SATA drive, I turned off RAID for SATA on my motherboard because I only use a single drive. the BIOS and windows recognized it as a "regular" IDE drive and so there was no need to press F6 and install some sort of a 3rd party driver set. could it be that I had to install that driver set even though I do not use RAID?

Here are the spec:

Trente's Rig

TIA!

 

[Quino]

U have to have service pack 1 (preferably sp2) for the hdd to be recognized

 

[LTC8K6]

You need at least SP1 to recognize drives larger than 127GB. Hopefully you have that already.

 

[Trente]

Do I need to reinstall windows using an SP1 installation or can I install SP1 now after windows has been installed?

 

[formulav8]

Just install service pack 1 without redoing the windows installation.

I would go ahead and do SP2 since it is now out. But it is your choice.



Jason

 

[Trente]

Originally posted by: formulav8
Just install service pack 1 without redoing the windows installation.

Jason

My question is, if I install SP1 (the service pack installation itself) on the current windows installation - in a windows environment that is, will it then suddenly detect my drive properly?

 

[SirOblivious]

Not sure, but nearly positive that you will have to repartition your drive (then reformat)

 

[Kitrax]

Install SP2 at your own risk. I was so excited to fianally be able to get SP2, that I installed it as soon as I got it...but then most of my favorite games wouldn't work...aside from all the other crap SP2 screwed up.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: SirOblivious
Not sure, but nearly positive that you will have to repartition your drive (then reformat)

Ya, his partition tables are currently configured as such that they're set for too small of a size(at best Windows would see the extra space and allow another partition; his current partitions aren't going to magically get bigger). His best bet is to slipstream SP2 on to a new Windows CD, and then install from there.

 

[Trente]

His best bet is to slipstream SP2 on to a new Windows CD, and then install from there.

How do I do that?

 

[imported_jon1003]

http://www.msfn.org/articles.p...on=show&showarticle=49

 

[digital8doug]

Just install SP 2 and reboot. should then see full HDD w/ unallocated space at the end. Then go add more partitions as desired.
I normally load mainbaord drivers B4 Video & sound card drivers, not sure if it makes any difference!