WD2500KS Gigabyte limitation

[Computerguy102]

Okay, So I needed to replace my old IDE Western digital HD (WD1600JB) with a WD2500KS.

My old WD HD crapped out on me from some weird thing with hitting the reset button and then powering down. We had two drives of this model in two similar machines and they both have now took a dump. They were only a couple years old. Fairly young.

When going to reformat I get a blinking HD activity light as opposed to a solid. Seems as if a sector was deleted and the drive is inaccessible from any machine.

Went to Best Buy and picked up a WD2500KS which I have been very happy with the performance of it compared to the IDE. It may not be the best out there compared to the latest and greatest you guys go after however it depends on what you use your PC for and what your needs are.

Aside from that I'll tell you what I'm running on:

Windows 2000 Professional (Upgrade disk)
MSI K8NEO4 Platinum Mobo
AMD Athlon 64 Socket 939 3200
Western Digital HD WD2500KS SATA 300gb/s
Plextor PX-716A (Non-relevant)

Since my Windows 2000 upgrade disk does not have all of the upgraded and up to date service packs this may be the reason for the drive split.

I formated and installed Windows 2000 on the WD2500KS using the Win2k upgrade CD. After loading the operating system I loaded all of my drivers and service packs. Windows recognized all new hardware including the WD SATA drive.

However, at this point I basically have my drive split into two sections. C and E. C has 127GB capacity and E has the remaining 104GB. Now it would be nice to be able to combine these two and have 231GB on one drive letter.

I probably would have to reload my OS in order to do that but I don't know how I could do it the right way the second time around. Would I need to make a updated Win2K upgrade disk with all the service packs?

On my previous drive which was a 160GB ATA IDE drive I was able to see the entire capacity of the drive on one drive letter. Once the drives were installed.

I have my WD2500KS going directly into the SATA 1 slot on my 7125 Mobo. Is there anything I need or should enable in the bios for this SATA drive? Right now its seeing it as a IDE Third master. The Raid utility is disabled.

Thanks in advance

 

[kellehair]

Same thing happened to me with an old copy of XP. I slipstreamed SP2 and that fixed the prob.

 

[erickj92]

It could be a partition error...

 

[stevty2889]

You can either try and use something like partition magic to combine the partitions, or you can slipstream windows 2K service pack for in to your windows cd. Service pack 4 is what gets past the 127gb limit, so if you partition your drive, before installing service pack 4, you won't be able to make a single large partition.

 

[amddude]

acronis disk director can also merge those

 

[bruceb]

He needs Windows 2000 SP4 to see the full capacity of the drive past the 137GB Limit

 

[btcomm1]

Once he gets SP4 he can use a program like Partition Magic or Acronis disk director to merge the space from the E to the C.