sufabooma
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FDISK
I am trying to partition a slave hard drive in my desktop. It is 160mb in size. When I run FDSIK and go to change to disk 2. I notice that the availbale space is 69%. Is this normal?
ASKER
I am not runnung WIndows 98 i am running XP Pro.
Can you clarify - 160 Megabytes or 160 GIGAbytes? What Operating system? If 160 GB, then it's possible there's a BIOS problem recognizing the full capacity of the drive.
ASKER
160gb. Windows XP Pro. How do I confirm that it is a BIOS problem? The PC is about 4 years old DELL P3 866mhz.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Sorry, meant to say:
4 year old PCs have no idea how to talk to drives over 128 GB
Here's the link for XP - you MAY not have to do this, but I've instances where even with SP1 or 2, you do.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013
4 year old PCs have no idea how to talk to drives over 128 GB
Here's the link for XP - you MAY not have to do this, but I've instances where even with SP1 or 2, you do.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013
While a BIOS update is likely to fix your problem, I also suggest that you check the website of the disk manufacturer. Many (all?) provide disk management tools for their products that I've found to be extremely good at resolving a great many disk formatting problems.
In Windows XP it is not reccomended to use FDISK but the 'DiskPart' utility. It is a much more flexable and powerful utility than the FDISK utility.
To initiate the diskpart utility do the following:
Click 'Start' => Choose 'Run...' => type 'diskpart' and press 'OK'.
Than type:
list disk <To view the list of disks>
select disk <the disk number you want to check>
list volume <and see exactly what is the situation of your drives. Post the results here and we can help you better>.
Cyber
To initiate the diskpart utility do the following:
Click 'Start' => Choose 'Run...' => type 'diskpart' and press 'OK'.
Than type:
list disk <To view the list of disks>
select disk <the disk number you want to check>
list volume <and see exactly what is the situation of your drives. Post the results here and we can help you better>.
Cyber
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Cyber-Dude - I'd forgotten about diskpart, but I have to concur with Dan7el - why not just use computer management/Disk Management?
Windows XP won't get the correct size of disks which are larger than 130 GB in size (this was a restriction with windows XP). This got resolved from SP1 upwards. I suggest you install SP2, and your disk will show up correctly (SP2 includes the updates of SP1).
It may be a good idea to mention also that if there is not a bios update that will solve this issue, there it a way around this problem that is not too expensive. You can get anouther IDE controller that supports drives beyond the 137GB limit of your current computer. These controllers also alow you to support the full speed of the ATA133 drives, as your computer is most likely running at ATA100. If you do decide to go this route, it would be best to plug in all your IDE devices into this card and disable the internel IDE channels from the bios. Here are a few cards under $50 that will work. If you get anouther controller from somewhere else, make sure it says it supports harddrives large then 137GB or it says it has 48-bit LBA
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=16-123-107&depa=1
http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_techspecs_full.php/masterid=534542#description
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=16-123-107&depa=1
http://www.pricegrabber.com/search_techspecs_full.php/masterid=534542#description
If you are running Win98 this might be your problem: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;263044
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