SATA drives recognized incorrectly in XP

[chuckz47]

My system (XP SP3) is installed on a 500 GB single SATA drive.
In addition, two 80 GB SATA drives are set up in a RAID 0 config.

Drive manager in Windows shows for those two: one 75 GB and one 149 GB (some storage wasted for formatting, that's OK, but where this 75 comes from?)

Then, the primary 500 GB drive has the OS partition (60 GB) doubled, so I am getting extra 60 GB in the Manager window.

Not sure how to get it right.

All the SATA drivers were installed during the Windows installation. The drives are recognized correctly in BIOS. (RAID 0 is shown at startup).

 

[tcsenter]

You have a 160GB volume/partition/drive somewhere in there (it would be reported as 149GiB in binary approximation).

 

[RebateMonger]

If I read this correctly, the following would be shown (assuming the disk descriptions are correct)

Scenario A -Assumies a RAID 0 array has been built with hardware RAID
Disk Management will show:

DISK 0 = 500 GB disk with two partitions - 60 GB and 405 GB
DISK 1 = 160 GB disk (the RAID0 array) with a single partition - 149 GB

 

[tcsenter]

Oops, I confused RAID1 and RAID0 volume metrics.

 

[RebateMonger]

Oops, I confused RAID1 and RAID0 volume metrics.

Arrgh, it all gets confusing. But it does seem something's "wrong" with the OP's disk setup.

O.P.-
Any chance of including a screenshot of the "Disk Management" panel?
Maybe a simple shot of the "My Computer" screen, too, showing details (disk size, etc.)?

 

[tcsenter]

Well that, and I'm on my 2nd (rather big) glass of Merlot.

 

[chuckz47]

Any chance of including a screenshot of the "Disk Management" panel?
Maybe a simple shot of the "My Computer" screen, too, showing details (disk size, etc.)?

OK - thanks for looking

 

[chuckz47]

So, what you see as 649 GB - is actually a 500 GB SATA
(the SATA RAID below 149 GB is now OK after the driver reinstall)

 

[VirtualLarry]

So, what you see as 649 GB - is actually a 500 GB SATA
(the SATA RAID below 149 GB is now OK after the driver reinstall)

That's a bit bizarre. Can you download the bootable HD diagnostics CD and burn it to a disc and boot from it, from the mfg of the HD, and tell us what size it says the drive is?

Also, what drivers are you using for your disk controllers? Which chipset? Is the BIOS up-to-date?

 

[RebateMonger]

Newegg doesn't show any 650 to 700 GB hard drives for sale in the U.S.

As noted above, it'd be nice to know the actual make/modelnumber and indicated capacities of the disks.

 

[chuckz47]

My motherboard is GA-K8NS-939-ultra, with AMD Athlon 64, 5 years old.
The story started from BIOS update. So now I have a new BIOS and new Windows XP and new SATA drive 500 GB, since the BIOS update did not go well in the beginning :\ I had to reinstall, and decided to add this new drive.
Booting from Acronis CD shows 500 GB, as well as running Acronis from Windows.
But the XP Disk Manager report these extra partitions - might be a registry issue ?
(Windows reinstall did not go smoothly)
It seems working fine at this point, except of this strange quirk.

This mobo uses nVidia SATA controller and Silicon Image SATA controller.
The drive in question is on nVidia. The 149 GB combined SATA 0 RAID (two 80 GB SATA) is on the SilImage controller. The 500 GB drive is shown in the POST screen as IDE channel 2 master, there is no slave.
IDE channel 0 Master is the old 120 GB IDE Hdd, slave - CD-ROM.
IDE channel 1 master is DVD-ROM

nVidia SATA drivers and SilImage SATA drivers were installed at the XP installation (otherwise Windows was not seeng the SATA drives at all)

 

[RebateMonger]

You are saying that Windows XP and that motherboard USED to correctly identify all the disks, but after a BIOS update you are seeing an extra (imaginary) partition on the 500 GB disk? Plus, I guess, that 121 GB of unallocated space at the end of that disk?

 

[chuckz47]

Yes, I am seeing two extra partitions: 62 GB (duplicating my System c: partition, and declared "free", plus that 121 GB partition ("unallocated")

 

[chuckz47]

Well, I got a reply from Acronis - that Windows Drive Manager failed to resresh partitions made by Disk Director, and I should either leave it as is (don't worry, it'll probably allright) or reformat, repartition and reinstall!
Thy would gladly help guiding me through the process...

What I don't understand is why would I need this program at all? I could reformat and repartition with Windows without buyng Disk Director.

Anyway, I am thinking maybe someone would suggest - is there a way to force Windows XP Disk manager to refresh the partitions made by a 3d party software? Or probably it's the responsibility of Acronis to address the bug? Somehow, Windows don't see the changes.
Thus, I am worrying about installing the programs.
(they say no problem unless you assign a volume to the ghost partition)

 

[chuckz47]

Update: the problem solved by reverting back to an old version of Acronis Disk Director - stay away from their 2010 version