300gb sata drive showing as 120g?

J

JimBowen

Guest
hi,

just finished building a new sytem but have come across a strange probelm, i bought a 300gb maxtor hdd ( Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 10 NCQ 300GB 6L300S0 SATA 16MB Cache) and everything installed fine.
But if i go into "my computer" and right click on c: and select properties it tells me that i only have 127gb free space with 3gb used space.

could anyone tell me why this could be? thank you

amd 4000+
xfx 7800gtx extreme edition
2gb ddr400
hiper type r sli psu
abit fatality mobo
hyundai 19" tft
300gb maxtor hd ( masquerading as a 130 gb hd!!! :mad: )
 
hi,

yes i am, i am using windows xp pro, which i bought in 2003, and i have installed service pack 1 and 2.
 
The original windows can only see a maximum of 120GB, so there is a good chance that when you installed windows, it made a single 120GB partition. I assure you that the rest is there just not visible. The Ultimate Boot CD has some good partion tools on it so you can create a second partition and recover your lost space :)
 
*edit* I dont think this is your problem, but i will leave it here for anyoen else [your reply to pelvis's post was no there when i started typing] *edit*

Most high capacity hard drive's can have a 'capped' so that they can be used with a motherboard/operating system that cant cope with the size of the storage device. The 'cap' is set by a jumper on the hard disc, the intructions on how to set it are normally printed on the top of that hard disc.

I would make sure that the 'cap' is not enabled, If it is then you will have to backup all of your documents as you will need to reformat the disc after you have removed the cap.
 
right

so windows does not recognise the actual size of my hd. does this mean that i cannot exceed 120gb, or once i get to 120gb will windows think that its full, or will i still be able to use the other 180gb of space.

i will also check to see if there is a jumper on the hd, but the prob is i bought it oem, so have no instruction manuel.

idealy i do not want two partitions,

thank you for your help
 
Good info there publicenemy, i forgot about the Caps.
Yes, see where the 'Max Cap' jumper is located :)
 
just to clarify, if it is not capped, and is still only showing 120gb, i will still be able to use the full 300gb as one drive?
 
Unless you can create a partition that uses the FULL capacity of the drive, you will have to use multiple partitions... so the space on the hdd will be divided into diffrent 'drives' [C:\ , D:\ etc]

I would reccomed The ultimate boot cd mentioned above, you could also try using partition magic to redifine the partition size.

Not being funny or anything, but it does say 300 GB on the disk doesnt it :P (ie did they send the right one?)

You could also try getting your hands on a windoze XP SP1 or SP2 disk (the windows installer that allready has sp1/sp2) and installing that using your serial, it should work....
 
Impotence said:
Unless you can create a partition that uses the FULL capacity of the drive, you will have to use multiple partitions... so the space on the hdd will be divided into diffrent 'drives' [C:\ , D:\ etc]

I would reccomed The ultimate boot cd mentioned above, you could also try using partition magic to redifine the partition size.

Not being funny or anything, but it does say 300 GB on the disk doesnt it :P (ie did they send the right one?)

You could also try getting your hands on a windoze XP SP1 or SP2 disk (the windows installer that allready has sp1/sp2) and installing that using your serial, it should work....
Click to expand...


yes it is def a 300gb hdd
 
i once put an 80 gig drive in my amd k6-II machine and when i fdisked it, it only showed 20 gig. somewhere i read that the fdisk program shows what it couldn't read in size, it showed 20 gig because it could read upto 60 gig. i got a new fdisk program and it partioned it to 80 gig. is this the same thing that early windows xp does?? the last computer that i built i put a 200 gig drive in it and i bought the newest version of windows xp pro and it formatted the harddrive as 1 drive. i went back before i finished the install and changed it to 2 partions.
also does your motherboard have issues with going over 127 gig, i am assuming that your motherboard has on board sata?? what is the limit of the onboard sata?? if that is the limit, can you change it with a bios flash??
 
You can see the full drive, including unformatted and unpartitioned space by doing this:

Right-click 'My Computer'. Go to Manage. Go to Disk Management. Here you'll see all your drives with all the space available.

Oh, and partitions are your friend. Seriously. Yes, it's true that you will need to reinstall all your programs, but the data there remains. So instead of having to backup your games and other stuff right before a format (although you should be backing up periodically to begin with), you can just format the Windows partition, while retaining your games, videos and music on a different drive. It's a real time saver. That, and it takes a lot less time to format, say 30GB instead of 300, especially if you decide to do a full format during the Windows install (which takes quite awhile). It probably doesn't make a whole load of difference with a quick format (for the record), but I don't own any hard drives over 60GB as of right now.
 
I don't know if SATA is behaviorally different from a standard HD in windows, but i have a maxtor 200gb hard drive and it came with sofware that allowed windows to recognize all fo the space b/c windows can't detect more than 137gb or something like that. The program was MaxBlast4. You can use it in windows to make partitions or you can use it as a bootdisc and format your hard drive and install the files that force windows to recognize the full HD capacity. Again this wasn't SATA so it may be different. Check to see if this type of software came with your HD.
 
megamaced said:
Nicely put Big B, put you've probably wasted your time as Jimbo ain't coming back:

http://www.hardwareforums.com/difference-between-amd-intel-help-9704/
Click to expand...

I get paid the same ($0). Personally, if I've got 4 hours to have a presentation finished, I'm not going to rely on waiting for some answers in any message forum, as you just don't know when you'll get a reply. He didn't like the responses, fine, it's out of my hands. I just happen to be critical of people who wait for answers on a message board with a few hours to go. It's just not a smart move. HWF is a free message board, with the staff giving time because they want to. We're here to help, but this is not a place where you can come in and demand answers pronto. I don't know why he waited as long as he did, but that his problem, not ours. We're not [H]ard|Forums or Anandtech with a huge number of members, and therefore, we may not have someone that sees your question and has an answer for you.

I put in an answer as it answered the problem. Weather he reads it or not is inconsequential. Other people can glean from the info and possibly fix an issue instead of having to wait for a reply.
 
Could somebody start a new thread on this? There are some many questions here it is hard to do just one. Anyway, here is what I want to point out to those that do not know.
Thee is a very REAL problem with using large had drives using the ATA (Not SATA) interface and Windows 2000 and Windows XP any service pack. The information is documented on the Microsoft site and many other places, but is so dense many people just skip it and try to install the large ATA drive the regular way, which will case problems hours, days or weeks later.
 
Yes! Notice where is says
"However the 28-bit hard drive addressing in hardware was at 137GB"
Which is an understatement. I mean, yes, it is true, but what people need to know is this:
If you install any ATA drive on any Windows XP system with more than 137 GB [sic] it will fail after awhile. What I did not understand, and many like me, is that Windows XP will not tell you 'Oh, I was not made to do that'. Instead it will try to write to the area above 137 GB but really writes into the lower pert. of the drive. No error messages, no warnings. Just write over whatever. This is a very bad flaw in Windows XP. There should have been a warning telling you that it is trying to go over the 137 GB limit. Many people just do not believe this because there was no warning, no error message. Nothing! Every Windows XP install CD ought to have a red stickey note that says. 'Do not install over 137 GB', until you fully comprehend this:’
How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in Windows XP
But how many will understand that you really have to go somewhere else, like this forum, to find out exactly what you have to do? MS will not tell you ‘Go to the Hardware Forum to learn more.’
 
That's a new one to me, and I haven't heard anything about XP failing because of larger than 137GB drives.

I probably don't run into this because I use partitions, but this is the first I've heard about this, so I'm going to approach it with some skepticism. I don't want to post something that's not an issue outside of a few isolated cases. If I see a pattern, I'll update the info, but for now, not happening.

The LBA addressing is a known issue, so adding the info isn't a problem.
 
Thank you for your response.
Others have documented how XP can crash when there is a LBA issue with a IDE drive that has the OS or in the lower part of a Large drive that has more that 137 GB allocated space. Any Write operations to the area above 137GB are truncated so that the write is really into the area below 137 GB. When the 48 bit thing is NOT enabled, XP does not flag this error. You find out when it is too late. This can also happen if you have another OS that you use from time to time and it does not have 48 bit LBA. The other OS can crash Windows XP, even it the XP partition is hidden or mounted.
Of course, this is not a new problem. But it continues to come up. It is a Major Issue, partly because MS did not give it the Media attention it deserves. It was, and is, a bad slip on the part of MS. It makes the Drive Makers look bad because the OS will report it as Data Corruption. That is often taken to mean Drive Failure. Here is just on of many independent links about this issue.

48bitLBA.com - Issues
 
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