Can I Use the Full Capacity of My 40G Hard Drive with XP?

[qwpoi]

Hi all,

I installed XP on a newly bought 40G hard drive (Western Digital) and when I inserted the Data Lifeguard disk to format it, it informed me that NT only recognizes 8 G...but my system isn't NT, it's XP. How do I get around this so I can use all 40G...? I just got informed by my computer that I'm almost out of space.

I tried going into the Data lifeguard again and reformatting but it keeps telling me that I can only use 8G. Argh!

Any help would be appreciated, Thanks all


-betsy

 

[BoulderHead]

The problem would seem to me as being a limitation in the motherboard BIOS, not in this case your choice of an OS.
I think you are not doing something right as far as the Data Lifegard is concerned. Read the manual carefully and look for a section which gives instructions on how to set the CHS configuration manually. I don't remember the figures but in order for the dynamic overlay to work properly you may need to enter the BIOS and manually set the Cylinders, Heads, and Sectors.

 

[russ_watters]

What is the model nuber of your motherboard? Or at the very least, what processor are you running? That'll help figure out whether or not your motherboard can handle that big of a hard drive.

 

[qwpoi]

The model type of my motherboard is 6563 a5u...manufactured by IBM.

I looked at the manual for Data Lifeguard, and one of the suggestions it gave was to flash my Bios which I did. My motherboard should be able to support this big of a hd anyway because I have a secondary hard drive that's twice as big which functions fine...

So after I flashed the bios I went into data lifeguard to reformat my hard drive with the proper amount of space, but it continues to give me a message that I'm using an outdated windows NT service pack. This really confuses me because I don't have windows NT on my system, I have XP. Why would it keep giving me this message?

Thanks..

 

[Sunfist]

No one explicitly stated this, so I will, even though I don't know if it's a factor of what's going on here.

XP is NT. It's updated NT that was made to look a lot like 98. That's why it can run as an SMTP server, run networks, etc.

 

[russ_watters]

qwpoi, so maybe the problem is with Data Lifeguard. Try partitioning and formatting it through windows: control panel->administrative tools->computer management->disk management.

 

[Lyuokdea]

first off, Sunfist is right, the terms XP and NT are used interchangably in the OS, if you look around you will often find things like ntds.sys and such in the OS, now on to the problem

First, check your BIOS and see if Large Hard Drive Support is the problem, it might be set to not allow large hard drives to work correctly, not allowing the support speeds up to some extent the speed of smaller HD's. This is my best guess at what the problem is.

Secondly, try using XP to format the drive, just have the drive in unformated, and right click on the drive in My Computer and click format.

You could also try to install XP on to the larger HD, if XP does the whole proceedure that might fix the problem.

Or lastly, because this is more time consuming and has more risks, if the problem is the BIOS, (check what the BIOS is registering the HD as in MB's to determine if it is) you could try to find an updated version of the BIOS, updated BIOS versions can be downloaded off of the manufacture's site and installed, it might fix the problem.

 

[BoulderHead]

I know for certain on some motherboards, in order for the EZ-Install program to work, you have to enter the BIOS, select a user defined option for your drive type, then enter 1023 cylinders, 16 heads, and 63 sectors. There is instruction concerning this included with many of the WD drives, and there are instances when you simply will not meet with success until you do this. This is the only suggestion I have to offer and if it hasn’t been tried then I would say to give it a shot.

Good luck

 

[qwpoi]

definitely didn't know that xp is NT. Explains a lot, except why would it be telling me to update my service pack? xp would be the latest, right?

"First, check your BIOS and see if Large Hard Drive Support is the problem, it might be set to not allow large hard drives to work correctly, not allowing the support speeds up to some extent the speed of smaller HD's. This is my best guess at what the problem is."

How do I find this out?

"Or lastly, because this is more time consuming and has more risks, if the problem is the BIOS, (check what the BIOS is registering the HD as in MB's to determine if it is) you could try to find an updated version of the BIOS, updated BIOS versions can be downloaded off of the manufacture's site and installed, it might fix the problem. "

I did update the BIOS, so that shouldn't be the problem. I'm going to try the other suggestions now...Thanks guys...

 

[qwpoi]

Clarification: Ok, my computer apparently recognizes the full capacity of my dri ve, but the problem is, Data Lifeguard just won't let me format the first partition larger than 8G due to apparent system limitations. I tried doing it through the control panel but it won't let me alter the partition with my system on it. Is there a way to get around this? What is with the XP/NT limitation on partition sizes?

(I'm a little agitated because I've been on the stupid western digital support line for the past hour listening to muzak and hearing a voice tell me that all engineers are currently assisting other customers, when I know they're lying and there's really no one on the other end of this damn line, because how many calls can they really have?)

 

[qwpoi]

Finally got through w/the ppl and my problem's all fixed...not supposed to use Data Lifeguard it appears and instead partition with the xp installation cd...


Yay. Thanks for your suggestions guys, I suppose it was fortuituous after all because I had been meaning to upgrade my BIOS but never got around to it.

 

[russ_watters]

Originally posted by qwpoi
Finally got through w/the ppl and my problem's all fixed...not supposed to use Data Lifeguard it appears and instead partition with the xp installation cd...

Oops, it appeared from your other posts you had already installed XP.

As a general rule of thumb, when you buy a new hard drive, the first thing you should do is take the floppy disk that comes with it and snap it in half, eliminating the temptation to try to use it. LBA overlay programs haven't been needed for about 8 years. I don't know why they are still including them with new drives.

 

[BoulderHead]

Originally posted by russ_watters
...LBA overlay programs haven't been needed for about 8 years. I don't know why they are still including them with new drives.

I like to think they do it just for me when I put an 80GB in my old 486.

 

[qwpoi]

" Oops, it appeared from your other posts you had already installed XP."

Well I had. But for some reason, the first thing I did upon installing the drive was to use that damn floppy instead of simply inserting the XP cd...so after I had gotten stuck with that 8g partition I installed XP...don't know what I was thinking, it all makes sense in retrospect.

And so I decided to just reformat and reinstall everything because I everything I want to keep is on my 2nd hard drive.

Thanks for all your help guys!