[tennisboy]

I took out the 250gb hard drive which was on my dell comp and put it on my computer i just built. Once i put everything together i install windows and the partiition says my hard drive is 127gb... what happened to the rest of the memory?? I go into "my computer" and it still says 127gb!!!!

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What edition of XP are you trying to install? Pre service pack 1, XP would not recognise hard drives over 127GB.

[Kurt_Aust]

What edition of XP are you trying to install? Pre service pack 1, XP would not recognise hard drives over 127GB.

[tennisboy]

i have windows xp pro service pack 2

[dsenette]

it could also be a bios issue...try flashing y our bios...this will probably help

[tennisboy]

how would i flash my bios?

[tennisboy]

my motherboard is: Asus A8v-E SE

[tennisboy]

and i just checked... i went into my bios and it SAYS 250 gb maxtor hard drive...but when i go to "my computer" it says 127 still =/

[Tyger]

You may have to enable something to get the full size???

[Supremebeing]

I have the same issue. Plz help on figuring this problem out.

[Kurt_Aust]

Go to [Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management] and take a look at the partition table of your hard drive.

It may be that the back end of that hard drive has not been allocated, in which case you'll have to create a new partition. I recommend an extended partition, then logical drive (as that's how Windows does it if you set it up when first installing).

It will appear as a different disk under My Computer/ Windows Explorer, but that's actually a good thing. Save all your data on that logical drive (My Documents > Properties, choose Change Target) and if your installation of Windows goes corrupt, you can reinstall without losing those files.

[dsenette]

tennis boy, where is it saying that the drive is smaller? in system information? or my computer?

[tennisboy]

In my bios it says 250 gb which is correct! BUT when i got to my computer and click on C: drive it says 127... Kurt Aust thats what my buddy told me but do i have to delete something and the format it? can't u guide me throught it? theres a black square box that says unallocated which has the rest of the memory!! the other box beside it has the other half! its so weird! argh!

[Kurt_Aust]

Excellent! Here's what you do (note that to some degree I'm going from memory as I don't have a spare hard drive to muck around with):

1. Open Disk Management and select that large block of unallocated space.
2. Right click and choose "Create Partition", then follow the prompts and choose "Extended Partition" of the maximum allowable size (which should already be in the data field).
3. Select and right click again, this time choosing "Create Logical Drive", using maximum size again.
4. Right Click again and choose format (this may be offered in step 3, that's OK too). Due to the size of the partition (>32GB) it will have to be NTFS, you can also name it, I generally call it "Data" (and the first partition "Boot").

So there you are, you should now have your full 250GB to play with.

[dsenette]

keep in mind tennis boy...that this will give you two drives...if you would prefer for it to all be one logical drive we can do that...but...in my opinion i would suggest leaving the two partitions as kurt suggests....it will make things easier in hte future

[tennisboy]

k i did what u said it says 250 gbs now!! which is good BUT when i installed win xp nothing else i go into my computer and it says:

Total size 233gb

free space 124gb

how can i already use 109 gb.....