hard drive help

[StuR]

just finishing doing a build but got a prob.

after i booted from disk to install XP i just went through the whole setup procedure, but then after I realised that I had the 32gb jumper still on and I had installed to this.

Then I removed it, rebooted and it showed a partition of 32gb and 90 odd gb which is weird because its a 160gb drive.


How can I totally re-format and start again so I can use all of the 160gb? I tried to format through windows but it wont let me as I am using the drive.

thanks

Stu

 

[djb]

hi man! as i realise... you got the first partition of 32gb because of the jumper.. so the installation of xp created that partition. now about the 90 gb partition... your motherboard ide controller, after you remove the 32gb jumper, tried to see all the hard disc capacity, and manage to see 90+32=122. my opinion is that your motherboard supports hard disc capacities not over 90gb, that's why your operating system show the second partition as 90gb. (normally must be 149-32=117) 11gb needed for the file system.(is normal).
in order to fix that, and your motherboard will be able to recognize 160gb hard drive, try to find updated drivers for your bios. be very careful because must be EXACTLY the same model and the same release in order to have a success, otherwise, your bios will be programmed wrong, and good bye motherboard, unless the update utility can backup the old bios. is better to search in the web site of your motherboard manufacture. if you don't have results, then try to search in alternative web sites. to be sure what your motherboard recognize, check in the bios in the ide autodetection, or hard disc detection section. menu will be different from brand to brand.
if your motherboard be able to recognize 160gb, then delete the partitions with fdisk utility from dos (you have to boot from a bootable device, floppy or cd-rom) delete the two partitions and create a new one. if you have data on the partitions and you don't want to lose them, try to merge the two partitions with a partition manager software such as partition magic, partition commander, or any other that kind of software you can find. have a good work!! reply again if you face problems.

 

[StuR]

ive just managed to format from dos, then boot into windows setup from disk, now it sees 137ish gb.

So from reading the sticky it mensions I need to update to sp2 to see the rest and then use partition magic etc to merge them.

After updating to sp2 would it automatically see the remaining23gb approx?

Also is partition magic free to download software?

 

[djb]

check up the bios what is recognise. if your motherboard can recognise 160gb, windows is gonna agree with that don't be so focused on windows. work with bios.

 

[StuR]

well as its starts to boot and lists what ram, pci cards, hard drives etc it registers at 163.7gb

 

[djb]

now to avoid trubles with previous created partitions with small sizes e.t.c.. delete the partitions (not format) format is creating file system on one partition only, your problem is that some capacity is unpartitioned or partitioned in secondary partitions. e.g format c: (enter) formats the primary partition (c) only. is not deleting any partition. use the fdisk.exe utility. if you delete the partitions, then create a new larger one with the maximum capacity.