200 Gb Hard Drive only showing 127Gb on Win Xp

[koldapu]

i know that, but theyre hard drives aren't 80gb . . . they are 80,000,000,000 bytes . . . even if you look at their company site, in fine print, they say that their definition of 1GB=1,000,000,000 bytes

 

[killians45]

okay, although the partition and format takes some of HDD space, what actually happens is this. When manufacturers show the size, they just show the decimal size. in example, 300 meg. now, what you have to do is break that down into the actual binary sizes. 1024 bits = 1 kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes = 1 MB (or 2048 KB). and 1024MB = 1GB so in a way, you ARE getting the correct amount, it just loses in decimal to binary conversion. Here is a link where I explained this crap in more depth and would hate to write it again! Its towards the end...

http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24182

 

[Harper]

WTF is atapi.sys

Have you tried loading SP1 yet? That might help.

I can't remember if I installed SP1a in there or not. Some how I don't think i have.

But i have having a problem there. I try to install SP1a, and I get the following error message :-

SERVICE PACK 1 Setup Error
The file C:\winnt\system32\drivers\atapi.sys is open or in use by another application.
Close all other applications and click Retry.

This leads me to the next question of, what is atapi.sys? And how do i terminate it? Becuase in not in the Task Manager.
On other strange bit of computer behavour is that I have some sort of virtual drive showing up under my computer. This has been there for some time, but I have no idea how it got there.
Would programs like Alcohol 120% or Nero 6 Ultra cause some thing like this?


So far, the plan of action is to re-install SP1a. But in oder to do that, I need to get passed this atapi.sys issue.

SO I am going to try the following :-
* Remove both opitcal drives and install SP1a.
* Remove CD burning programs (Nero and Alcohal 120%) and install SP1a.
* Remove 200Gb hard drive and install SP1a.
* Combination of the above.

If you got any other suggestions, i am all ears. I am just not in the mood to format right now.

 

[hilowe]

I know that Alcohol will load a virtual drive, just like what you're seeing.

I found this link for the atapi.sys problem. According to this link, atapi.sys is a Microsoft supplied IDE driver.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=197667

Unfortunately, it's for NT4.0.

 

[hilowe]

I found this by doing a google search.

http://www.computing.net/windows2000/wwwboard/forum/58337.html

 

[gecko_au2003]

I thought it didnt show the full size of the hard drive because windows and dos or w/e uses some of the hard drive space for when you partition or the boot strap loader or the MBR ( Master Boot Record ) and other things like that and I thought thats why the 80 gig or w.e size hard drive's space went, not to mention the cluster size for each partition , cos you also lose space there.

Not sure If I am right about any of this, can someone please enlighten me and let me know if I am or not ?

 

[jolancer]

i think the atapi drivers are used by burning programs.. if i recall, thy are drivers for reading from internal cdrw's when copying/scaning disks.

 

[Harper]

I know that Alcohol will load a virtual drive, just like what you're seeing.

I found this link for the atapi.sys problem. According to this link, atapi.sys is a Microsoft supplied IDE driver.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=197667

Unfortunately, it's for NT4.0.

I will check out the link when i get home.

i think the atapi drivers are used by burning programs.. if i recall, thy are drivers for reading from internal cdrw's when copying/scaning disks.

Now that i think about it, i don't remember seeing that virtual drive untill after i installed Alcohol120%. So I might uninstall that first, and see how i go.

 

[Harper]

CASE CLOSED

In the end, it turns out that Alcohol120% was stopping me from Installing SP1a.

After getting removing Alcohol120%, i was then able to get SP1a on there with out too much hassle. And from there, Partition Magic 8 was detect the rest of my hard drive.


Currently it showing as 189 Gb.

Much better. I am happy now.