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Using a large Hard Drive with Windows XP

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tariq2962

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Original poster
Oct 10, 2005
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I have windows xp sp 2 running on my computer. My computer is almost 6 years old with Celeron processor.
I had a 10GB HDD originally, when I tried to connect a 320 GB HDD and had it formated, I got a message that windows XP and my system bios had not been able to support any HDD more than 32GB. I initially formated to a 32GB HDD. Then I contacted award bios and had my system bios upgraded. Since then I have not been able to re-format it to its full capacity which is 320 GB. I would appreciate if any Guru here would help me. (I came to know I needed Windows XP service pack 1 that supports large drive)

Thanks
 
older systems didn't support LBA which kept the drives at 32 gig.. make sure you're formatting in NTFS as well.. FAT32 especially when formating in XP didn't format with LBA...
 
If your computer is 6 years, that large of a hard drive is probably not supported by the BIOS in the motherboard.



You need to find out what kind of mobo it is and check to see if there is a BIOS update at the mfg's website.

You can sometimes see the mobo model during the boot-up post screen. If not, crack open the case and look for the brand and model to be silk-screened on it somewhere. The model is usually towards the rear in between two of the expansion slots.
 
Right click on My Computer select Manage then double click on Storage and Disk Management(Local). At the bottom you should see a graphical of you hard drives. Right click on the one with 32GB partition and 288GB free space and select delete(WARNING ALL DATE ON DRIVE WILL BE LOST). Once the partition is deleted you should be able to repartition and format. Let me know if you need more help.
 
Did you even think about that post before you typed it..

"XP did this to me"

XP didn't do anything.. YOU did it to yourself.. FAT32 IS as far back as you can go with XP.. Your own lack of knowledge about your OS caused you grief.
And all your inciteful knowledge about FAT32 and LBA not working is completely WRONG.. If you don't know, DON"T ANSWER.. Passing BAD information is worse than passing none.

A 32gb limit is one imposed by the hardware, being 6 years old it only knows how to support what was built at the time.. There are several software solutions the OP can use to make this drive recognizable, BUT, here you have XP on a celery in a old ass machine.. :eek:

Spend the dough and get some hardware upgrades, starting with mobo/proc then your stuff will work together.
 
I don't see where tariq has responded since he made the original post, so he may have either figured it out our gotten the answer from another source. If he is still checking back here, let's clarify what he posted and the responses.

He states the computer is six years old. I would say this is probably an approximation, because it evidently came with Win95, which had the 32GB limitation. I'm assuming the BIOS was set according to the limitations of the OS of the time. Win98/ME was limited to 68GB, and XP was limited to 137GB prior to the release of SP1, which he found out and evidently installed. He realized the BIOS needed to be upgraded, and did that. So, the limitations, assuming everything has been updated and upgraded correctly, has been taken care of, its now a matter of getting the hard drive to reformat to its full capacity after having been formatted at a size 1/10th its full capacity. More discussion of whether the limitation is software of hardware related aren't really helpful. The limitations were related to both hardware and software. And insults aren't helpful Zombie, since you have shown your own ignorance by stating that the hardware was the only limiting factor. And the answer is not necessarily throwing new hardware at the problem. I have used many hard drives of considerably higher capacity than the computers they were in were originally designed for.

My guess would be that wied's instructions should solve his problem, but until and if he lets us know if they work we really won't know if there is some other problem.
 
VinceT3 said:
it could be the os if he formatted FAT32 (XP did this to me on an external drive)
Click to expand...

Insulting or not, this is an ignorant statement. I really do not care what people think of my responses, (it's quite liberating actually) but they should think about things before they spout off statements like this. Regardless...............

OP posted that he did the bios upgrade and still cannot format to full capacity. Thus, no matter which OS he wants to use, IT IS A HARDWARE LIMITATION... Upgrading the bios does not upgrade the circuitry that it's controlling. While it can up the limit by altering the software on the chip, that motherboard (without a 3rd party translator) will never recognize that drive for what it is.
I've worked in the PC field since I was 15 (17 years) and have done my share of HD cramming on old machines.

The problem with statements like Vince made are, someone who doesn't know better will be perusing through the threads and see that and take it as fact that if they have XP they can't have large HD's. Think about what others will take from what you post before you post it.

Brad
 
If OP will come back, first what you need to check and tell us - what new BIOS telling about the disk and what parameters you could apply to the disk (CHS, LBA,etc).

[Lets DO step-by-step, instead of blah-blah discussion.]
 
Zombie069 said:
Insulting or not, this is an ignorant statement. I really do not care what people think of my responses, (it's quite liberating actually) but they should think about things before they spout off statements like this. Regardless...............

OP posted that he did the bios upgrade and still cannot format to full capacity. Thus, no matter which OS he wants to use, IT IS A HARDWARE LIMITATION... Upgrading the bios does not upgrade the circuitry that it's controlling. While it can up the limit by altering the software on the chip, that motherboard (without a 3rd party translator) will never recognize that drive for what it is.
I've worked in the PC field since I was 15 (17 years) and have done my share of HD cramming on old machines.

The problem with statements like Vince made are, someone who doesn't know better will be perusing through the threads and see that and take it as fact that if they have XP they can't have large HD's. Think about what others will take from what you post before you post it.

Brad
Click to expand...
You've also made some misleading comments, that someone could easily misunderstand, and while you may feel liberated, your attitude isn't going to inspire anyone to ask questions. I've also been cramming hard drives in old machines for 17 years, although I was older than you when I started. I started by cramming a 30 meg MFM hard drive in an Amstrad 640 that was never designed for anything more than dual floppy drives. Unless the OP comes back with more information I seen no reason to post further in this thread.
 
Most of the hard drive manufacturers have utilities for old motherboards if your BIOS can not be set to see the entire hard disk. If you can not get the hard drive to recognize the 320GB (try the above suggestions first), then check with the hard drive manufacturers site. They will have a program that will load and change the hard drive parameters for XP will recognize the whole hard drive. Then you can continue to load XP on the new hard disk. I am assuming that you want to remove the old hard disk and replace it with the new hard disk, or are you just wanting to add a second hard disk to your system? As for fat32 limitations, I have a few 500GB external hard disks formatted to a single partition using FAT32. For my situation, FAT32 format for an external hard disk has solved some problems with using NTFS on an external hard disk. i.e. not all machines can read the files after a certain point.
 
Zombie069 said:
WOW!!..

What did that take..??

Install a plug in IDE card, then plug in a HD.. Man.. :tux:
Click to expand...
Don't read well for comprehension? The Amstrad BIOS was one of two, Epson being the other, which would not accept an IDE card. I had to use an MFM hd. Then, because the Amstrad was designed for its and only its proprietary floppy drives, I had to cut and drill the metal cage so I could physically install the hd in the space previously occupied by one of the floppies. I was not using the term "cram" loosely as you seem to have. Perhaps you shouldn't make comments about things you don't really know about.
 
Ive read up on them.. Your sense of humor runs about as deep as your knowledge...

We were lucky enough to not have many in the states.. I've only seen 1 in person, but it as well had the addon IDE box.
 
Zombie069 said:
Ive read up on them.. Your sense of humor runs about as deep as your knowledge...

We were lucky enough to not have many in the states.. I've only seen 1 in person, but it as well had the addon IDE box.
Click to expand...
I didn't just read about them, I owned one, and worked on one. The Amstrad did not accept the IDE adapter cards used in the early 90's when IDE was the new thing, long before ATA, SATA, etc. They required an MFM HD. I know this because I had an IDE drive and card in my hot little hand, and it didn't work. The CSR gave me the bad news that the IDE wouldn't work, and sent out an MFM in exchange. If you started out doing hard drives 17 years ago, and didn't own either an Amstrad or Epson computer you may not have ever been aware or have forgotten that there were formats that came before IDE.

I bought my Amstrad 1640 at Sears, on clearance, discounted from $999 to $199. Pretty good computer actually, with a color monitor, and a mouse. These were not common items around 1990. A whopping 640 K of memory. I still had it until just a couple of years ago, when we were getting ready to move and I brought a load of computers and parts to a school district where they could recycle them, rather than move them.
 

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