[dango111]

Hello,

I recently put together a SFF with the sole HDD being a WD 250GB SATA. However I can only use 133GB of it, although I have installed SP2, been into hard drive management and can see the other half... but when I ask to extend (in DOS window) I get an error message. I've also tried extending with partition magic, but that hasn't worked either. Someone mentioned bigLBA, but I haven't been able to find a download for it.

Any advice would be most appreciated.

Thanks, dango111

Aopen EZ482
AMD Athlon 64 Venice+
1 GB PC3200
Sony DVDRW/CDRW
WD 250GB SATA

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have you updated your bios? some older bios versions do not allow for large drives

[dsenette]

have you updated your bios? some older bios versions do not allow for large drives

[dango111]

Thanks dsenette . The ez482 is pretty new, and I couldn't find any updates of the Aopen site.

Anyone got any more suggestions?

Thanks, dango

[Samm]

Hi there

Does your bios actually recognise the drive size correctly?

If so, then read this article from Microsoft re. 48-bit addressing & XP :
http://support.micro...kb;en-us;303013

Or this one if you use win2000:
http://support.micro...kb;en-us;305098

[dango111]

Hi there Samm, Yeah this special time is indeed dedicated to humiliating myself

I've read the XP doc, but with no joy. I have the correct version of atapi and all is well. partition magic recognises the empty space, but just says some stuff about being a demo... hmm, do I have to spend £40 to get to the rest of my drive?

My bios is nice and happy with the 250 too. I'm not using the WD SATA cable that I bought, because the EZ482 came with an adapter for the power plug, and cable for the data. Could that be a factor?

Thanks again, dango

[Leurgy]

Western Digital has the Data Lifeguard Tools that will overcome this limitation. See How to use the Data Lifeguard Tools 11 CD to partition and format a drive larger than 137GB (128GB binary) in Windows 2000/XP.

But I guess its a little late in your case as the OS is already installed.

Edited by Leurgy, 16 August 2005 - 06:35 PM.

[dango111]

OK, so not exactly the solution I was hoping for. But if that's the solution, then I'll give it a go. Going to be a couple of days before I can try this out as my mate has my portable HDD, but I'll be sure to let you know the outcome.

Cheers, dango

[Samm]

Hi dango111

Leurgy is right, WD do provide software that will let you set the drive up as a 250GB partition, but as he pointed out, you will need to reinstall windows afterwards as the drive will be wiped.

Another possible solution to this, is to check XP's disk management (run compmgmt.msc, then select disk management). If disk management recognises that there is 120GB of unpartitioned space, then just use disk management to create a new partition in this unallocated space.

[Tyger]

I agree with Samm, it probably easier to split the drive into two partitions than to mess around with overlay software, which will slow it down some, and require that you reinstall. Unless you have a 200gb file, of course!

[dango111]

Thanks everyone. This problem is rather a strange one. I've been into disk management and it recognises the empty space, but if I try to extend or partition it says it's going to do it, but then just doesn't... I haven't have my machine for long so I'm to too botherred about reformatting. Tyger's comment on performance is a little worrying though.

Will be trying again this evening (Friday night fun!!) and will post.

Thanks Again, dango

[dango111]

OK, so it's been a really long while since I've visited the site, but just in case anyone else has a similar problem I thought I would post my solution. I bought a copy of XP, formatted & reinstalled... that did the trick. Not the neatest solution, but it worked. :-)