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HELP!! 250GB Hard Drive

post #1 of 9
12/26/03 at 2:58pm
Thread Starter 
Ok, I just got a new 250GB 7200RPM Western Digital Hard drive for my Alienware desktop but...I only have Windows Professional on CD, I do not have it with Service Pack 1. I can download SP1 and install it, but the PC still only sees 137GB on the drive....Anyone have any clue on how I can configure my PC to see all 250 without buying a controller card? I already have SP1 installed on the 250GB hard drive, as it is now my main drive, but I installed regular XP w/o SP1....any help?
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post #2 of 9
12/26/03 at 4:06pm
You would never see your 250gig. you might see 230gig or little lower, but 137gb, thats way too low. sp1 would not help you as I don;t use it and i see 230gb on mines. Try putting that hd only and reformatting. No matter what drive you buy, you will never get that exact amount
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post #3 of 9
12/26/03 at 4:20pm
Thread Starter 
Yea I know, I figured out that I should only see 136.64GB....1 billion bites in a giga bite my ass...lol....lamers....sorry reverting back to my computer programing classes...anywho, I got it to work, I used my Laptop install disk which had Windows XP second edition. Thanks!
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post #4 of 9
12/26/03 at 9:15pm
Heh, I was about to suggest that when I spotted your post...

BTW: ever think about just putting the HD in an enclosure so it could be readily used by BOTH computer?
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post #5 of 9
12/26/03 at 9:29pm
Windows XP can address a up to a 2 terabyte volume using NTFS. You may need a bios update, or switch from auto drive detection to manual and adjust the heads to 15. Most auto detect settings set you to 16 on large drives.
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post #6 of 9
12/26/03 at 9:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by p8ntbalinzephed
Ok, I just got a new 250GB 7200RPM Western Digital Hard drive for my Alienware desktop but...I only have Windows Professional on CD, I do not have it with Service Pack 1. I can download SP1 and install it, but the PC still only sees 137GB on the drive....Anyone have any clue on how I can configure my PC to see all 250 without buying a controller card? I already have SP1 installed on the 250GB hard drive, as it is now my main drive, but I installed regular XP w/o SP1....any help?
Try partitioning the drive in half. So drive C would be 125gb and drive D would be 125gb.
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post #7 of 9
1/7/04 at 12:54am
your problem is your ide bus isnt ata6 compatable( and therefor u are limited to the max size of 137g) so u gotta get a new ide controller card for it, and thats the only way to fix it aside from getting a new mobo.
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post #8 of 9
1/7/04 at 4:55am
agreed mailman,

This is why you can find some of the older enclosures for like $40 or so for a 2-drive on E-bay, but $80+ for the 2-drive ones that can handle the larger HDs.

And the price gets really wild from there ($150 for a 4-drive enclosure, and prices up to $500+ for an 8? )
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post #9 of 9
1/8/04 at 9:51pm
Thread Starter 
All I had to do was install XP with service pack one, and it worked fine...thanks everyone!!
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