250 GB Western Digital Cav Showing 130 GB?? [Archive]

V|P

11 Feb 2006, 6:31pm

Hey Guys,
As you all know, i just got done building my new system. At first, I tried to install Media Center without Internet and I couldn't get the service packs, so i decided to go with XP Home. When I got to the bootup screen from the CD, I went to delete old partition, and deleted it. Now that i did that, My hard drive is only showing up as 127 or 130 GB. Any suggesting.

Leonardo

11 Feb 2006, 7:31pm

Yup, it's only showing the active partition. It's reading your drive just as it's supposed to. You'll either have to reformat and expand the partition to the total volume of your drive or reset the old partition as active again. "Active" - sorry I don't remember the exact term. Go to Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management, and you should be able to see the subdivisions of your hard drive.

There are probably third-party software programs available that you could use to expand your active partition to full volume without loosing your files. I haven't used such software in a long time so my knowledge on that is a bit skimpy.

GrayFox

11 Feb 2006, 7:31pm

Format it in NTFS not fat32.

V|P

11 Feb 2006, 9:42pm

Yup, it's only showing the active partition. It's reading your drive just as it's supposed to. You'll either have to reformat and expand the partition to the total volume of your drive or reset the old partition as active again. "Active" - sorry I don't remember the exact term. Go to Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management, and you should be able to see the subdivisions of your hard drive.

There are probably third-party software programs available that you could use to expand your active partition to full volume without loosing your files. I haven't used such software in a long time so my knowledge on that is a bit skimpy.

ya good job again leo, right on target. i see two partitions and one won't show up when i boot up the windows disk. I would prefer to use one of these "software" things you mentioned. haha windows sucks.
anyone know any progs for this?

profdlp

11 Feb 2006, 10:54pm

Did the version of Windows you bought come with SP1 already on it? Without it, you are limited to a 137GB partition.

V|P

12 Feb 2006, 12:01am

Did the version of Windows you bought come with SP1 already on it? Without it, you are limited to a 137GB partition.
no i bought it in 2001 and i dloaded service pack 2 so can i join the partitions now?

profdlp

12 Feb 2006, 12:13am

You'll need other software to resize the current partition, such as Partition Magic, etc.

It may be simpler to just make sure you install SP1, then create a new partition in the free space. You can do this within Windows using the Management Console.

V|P

12 Feb 2006, 1:56am

well i can get software to resize it for free or trials or something. i got paragon or something from download.com which has a "resize" option but i need someone to walk me thru it. I'll post exactly what it says in a minute.

EDIT: Okay, first off, in Paragon, I clicked Merge Two Adjacent Partirions and it found one, the one I'm using right now, and another, which said "Unallocated". What's that mean?
More right after it scans the "deleted" partition....

V|P

12 Feb 2006, 2:46am

found out how to do it, and as a test, i told it to resize 20 GB more and it took 20 mins, but it worked. planning to do the rest tommorow.

Kwitko

12 Feb 2006, 4:28am

Make sure you also have 48-bit LBA enabled.

V|P

12 Feb 2006, 6:08am

Make sure you also have 48-bit LBA enabled.
sorry but wtf is that?

profdlp

12 Feb 2006, 6:22pm

sorry but wtf is that?
Reading, my man. It's good for you. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=48-bit+LBA&btnG=Google+Search) :headbange

V|P

12 Feb 2006, 10:23pm

Reading, my man. It's good for you. (http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=48-bit+LBA&btnG=Google+Search) :headbange
What is this "re-ad-ing" you speak of?