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Windows only recognizing 32gig of my 40 gig hard drive

firstly, is the hdd size seen correctly in bios?
XP will only format up to 32Gb in fat32. for a larger partition you'll either have to use NTFS or fdisk & format the hdd with a win98 startup floppy!
 
hmm..not sure about the bios, ill reboot and check. I've had it up and running on fat32 for about 6 months how but it was full of data by the time I noticed so I didnt do anything about it. (formatted it when running 2k orginally).

I now have additional drives for file storage, so I deleted the partition and tried to format/make a new one but it still only does 32 gigs.
 
bios reporting 33.8xx gigs...

what the hell do I do? even if I try to fomat NTFS I unable to go beyond 32 gigs. edit: windows disk management shows 31.49 gigs.
 


<< bios reporting 33.8xx gigs... >>


seem a little low.
did you check to see if you've got a capacity limiting jumper at the rear of the hdd?
usually limits the seen hdd size to around 32Gb.
 
Its an IBM 60gxp, anyone know if such a jumper exists before I go through the hassle of pulling the drive out and checking? 🙂

thanks guys
 
I assume ur running win2k or winxp or winnt. You have to format in NTFS or it willsee it as 32gb.
 


<< seems like you have the jumper limitation enabled for that hdd! 🙂 >>





ahhh! that has to be it especially since that page specifically mentions a 33.8 gig limitation. perfect! you are so helpful, thank you. I was clueless as to the problem.
 
actually, its a bit more complicated that that.

AWARD BIOS 4.5x 33.8GB limitation
At the time of testing all systems tested by IBM with AWARD BIOS 4.5x were found to have a capacity limitation of 33.8 GB. This prevents the system from booting with IBM drives with a capacity greater than 33.8 GB.

To overcome the problem and enable your system to handle drives with a capacity greater than 33.8, download and use the Disk Manager utility to install your IBM drive. Disk Manager provides step-by-step instructions to help you install any IBM drive.






Thats news to me, guess I'll have to DL their utility. Thanks for the tip.
 
My response here is offtopic, please forgive...

I fail to understand the "this belongs in X forum" guidelines used by the Anandtech Moderators. Why would this thread (dealing with software/OS inabilities) not be locked by a Moderator? I'm not saying it should be locked, but when I see the threads people get into a tizzy over I wonder what is black, what is white, and what is ok or not for the hardware forum. Sorry for OT but anyone care to enlighten me (uh oh, doesn't that belong in the "Other" forum...).

-Phil
 


<< sheez...id say a "40 gig" harddrive is ...hardware >>



My point exactly, is it the hadrware that is causing the issue (and thus it is posted in the correct forum) or is it a software failure/misconfiguration (in which case this thread is in the wrong forum)? I could care less what forum it is in, I only ask because the mods seem to have some set of reules regarding this when they decide it is time to lock a thread. The issue is especially murkey considering that I know of no software that has been designed to not run on hardware, meaning nearly any topic regarding software inherently imples hardware and vice versa...

For instance, say my network card (NIC) is not working, does the thread requesting help go into Software/OS (maybe TCP/IP isn't configured correctly), does it go into the Networking thread (it is a networking card after all), or can I post in the Hardware forum since the NIC is a "hardware". I say who cares, the number of locked thread lately says some of the mods do, I cannot figure heads or tails out of their logic and was wondering if someone knew what the heck is going on.
 
That was going to be my suggestion.

Just as in the good old non-LBA days, BIOS limitations are lots of fun.

Old systems such as 486's tend to have a limitation of 512mb (well 53-something if you wanna be exact), which was overcome by Logical Block Addressing,
Lots of older pentium (and even pentium-II) class systems had an 8gb limit, I believe this was also a limit on the # of cylinders...

And more recently, there is a 32gb limitation on a handful of systems. IBM's capacity-limiting jumper lets you use the drive without an overlay, but removing that jumper still wont let the BIOS see all of it - if the BIOS has that limitation.

A drive overlay such as Ontrack Disk Manager would overcome the limitation, like IBM's documentation says - but they dont tell you how difficult it can be to keep your data...

If you take the drive out, create a 40gb partition on another machine, then put it back in, you OS will actually see the whole 40gb, though the BIOS wont. That's the easiest way to do it, but if you ever try to re-create the partitions, you'll need another machine again.

If you use disk manager to install an overlay onto the drive, it'll do it in one of 2 ways. A) it'll read the drive settings directly from the firmware, and create a 40gb partition.
or B) it'll change the drive settings in the firmware to what your BIOS supports, and then use an overlay to control access to the drive, making it appear to the system as a 40gb (with the proper drive settings, not what the BIOS is being told it is).

Partition magic will NOT work with the partition if it's got an overlay installed - neither will programs like Boot-It. They'll most likely report a partition error.
Norton (symantec) Ghost also will not work with it - neither reading from nor writing to. Ok well it MIGHT work, but i've never been able to get it to.

Try a BIOS update 😉
 
even w/ all that cleared up, ur not going to see a huge windfall.

a 40,000,000,000 byte drive will only be what, 38 GB or something like that??
 
Is it really that difficult to comprehend?

"I have a problem with my NIC card not working"

Great, see networking.

"MY HDD is making funny noises"

Great, see hardware.

"Where can I find the option to enable DMA mode for my HDD in windows?"

Hardware, because it relates to a function on a hardware device.
It also COULD go in software, because you're also talking about a software setting, and a windows 'guru' may be able to point you to it.

"Excel keeps crashing"

Take a guess.

"Im pssed off with these moderators and I dont understand how their system works"

Definately not general hardware.
I dont know where it does belong, but it would seem that that's your problem, not mine.

 


<< can't get more than 32gb in winxp with FAT32??? >>



<< Pass whatever ya'll are smoking this way >>



No one is smokin anything here. If you format a drive with fat 32 in winxp there is a 32 gig partition limitation. That is a fact.



<< You cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in size using the FAT32 file system in Win2K/XP. The Win2K/XP FastFAT driver can mount and support volumes larger than 32 GB that use the FAT32 file system (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create one using the Format tool. This behaviour is by design. Microsoft recommends using NTFS for partitions greater than 32GB. >>

That is from the Anandtech faq on ntfs vs fat32 by Andy Hui
 
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