500gb or 137gb? Hastles with XP

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randee

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I recently bought a new AMD Dualcore 6400 barebones system.
Not realizing the motherboard it came with only had one IDE channel, I wound up purchasing a 500gb SATA drive to replace the 100 & 120gb drives I previously had.

The issue is installing Windows XP on the 500 SATA and using it as a primary boot drive.
I had it running in a matter of minutes, but using only 131 GB of the drive capacity,
I read somewhere about slipstreaming the drive with the raid drivers at XP's initial setup.
That is a whole nother story in itself, but was done.
BIOS and XP that is installed on the 120gb drive read the drive as a 500 GB drive.
The WD LifeData tools that the drive came with, easily allows me to partition and format the drive into five 100gb drives. But upon installing XP, it only comes up as a 131gb drive and says it needs to be formatted. Thus turning the drive back into a 131 gb drive with a 370 gb loss.
Then I read I need to make the disk active in XP's DiskManagement.
DiskManagement, again allowed me to re-partition the drive, but only into 4 partitions, (one 100 and three 125's (465gb available)) reformat the drive and make it "active".
Then to install XP on the first partition XP setup show the drive as a single 131gb drive (even though it's partitioned as 100gb) and needs to be formatted.

What the hell gives? is XP setup anable to see a partitioned drive biger than 131gb or is there a step I'm missing?
 
Yes, on the 120gb.
I had windows installed on the 500gb while it was only reading 131gb, and then SP2, but you can't add any more partitions to a boot disk..at least, not using the Western Digi software that came with the drive.
Can you create like a 100gb partition in Setup and then in DiskManagement add the remaining partitions?
 
your BIOS must support the LBA option and if it does, it will allow large partitions
greater than 137bg.
 
OK, this is all well and good, but why would you want an OS partition any larger than say 40GB. 'Cause the more that's on it, the more data gets wiped if you have to reinstall Windows. My 2 cents, sorry for butting in.
 
Fair enough, however, it's not as if data isn't easily retrievable between Knoppix and accessing it through another partition if Windows won't boot.
 
"...Okay, so, just to make this clear, you have XP on the 500GB HDD along with either SP1 or SP2 correct?"

I just loaded XP on the 500 gig and have loaded SP2. I'm running off that drive now.
SP2 allowed me to go into the DiskManager and partition the remaining drive space.
However, during setup I wasn't given the option of partitioning a space any smaller than 131gb as my boot drive.
Which answers the next question...
"OK, this is all well and good, but why would you want an OS partition any larger than say 40GB."

I would prefer a much smaller partition..say 50gb for the OS to reside.
I initially wanted two 50's, and four 100's, but the Disk management system is limited to only 4 drives.

Also, as XP was attempting to reboot, I came up with a new one.
"NTLDR is missing" ?
How can something be missing off a fresh install?
 
Ah! I got you, I hope. So, the full 500GB is now available within Windows it's just not allocated to a specific partition, correct? The Disk Management utility within XP will not allow you to alter the Active partition. You will need to use a third party utility such as GParted.

Meh, that error is no big deal at all. Check this guide out...
 
Well, I'm stuck with a 127gb boot drive rather than the 50 I was hoping for, but at least it's functioning...and pretty dang fast I might add. I do have a utility that came with the WD HDD that could allow me to break the 127 down further into two 60's, but I've been messing with this for 3 days and I'm cool with the 127.

However, I did notice that the original IDE 120 I was using is set as Disk 0, while the new SATA is Disk1. How does that work since the IDE drive is set as a slave and on an IDE channel. is there any way to change that, since the SATA drive is set as Drive D:?
 
What's our boot order in BIOS? Is the SATA plugged into SATA 0 or 1? You can always take the IDE out of the boot order and Reletter all the drives in disk management. The only 1 IDE buss, is no suprise. Almost all the new motherboards only have 1 IDE socket
 
"What's our boot order in BIOS? Is the SATA plugged into SATA 0 or 1? You can always take the IDE out of the boot order and Reletter all the drives in disk management."

SATA is in 0. The bios reads it as master 2 or 3. I supopse the IDE channel is 0 because it's read as Master 1? I've been trying to take the IDE out, but it's a "system disk" where as the D: on the new 500gb is a "boot drive". Any idea on how to change that?

"The only 1 IDE buss, is no suprise. Almost all the new motherboards only have 1 IDE socket"

This system replaced my old 1.7ghz system. I didn't think to research the new motherboards that carefully to notice you can't get two IDE slots anymore unless you want to go bottom of the line.
 
Your IDE drive should be converted to a "Volume" drive. There might still be a MBR (master boot record) on it, which BIOS and Windows are picking up.

If it were mine I would copy all my data to the new SATA, then wipe the drive completely. Remove it,reboot, shut down, reconnect it, and let Windows reformat it, adding it as a "Volume".

There is a boot menu in BIOS. Sometimes it can be accessed by a different control key than BIOS itself.

Let's wait for Zeno to ring in on this approach though. OK?

randee said:
This system replaced my old 1.7ghz system. I didn't think to research the new motherboards that carefully to notice you can't get two IDE slots anymore unless you want to go bottom of the line.
Click to expand...
You don't actually want do do that, do you? IMHO, the IDE buss gets a pair of optical burners, and the SATA ports get the HDDs, nothing is wasted, everything is bliss.
 
Nah, that's cool. The more the merrier, eh?

I'm not planning on keeping the IDE drives in the system.
Once I copy over the data, I'm giving the drives away to a computer charity.
They rarely get anything to work with over 10gb...that's right 10gb.


"You don't actually want do do that, do you? IMHO, the IDE buss gets a pair of optical burners, and the SATA ports get the HDDs, nothing is wasted, everything is bliss."

Do what?
I'm keeping the DVD burner (and now maybe the DVD-ROM) on the IDE channel, while the SATA drive is obviously going on the SATA port. I'm all about bliss bro...all about bliss. :)

However I couldn't just repair the windows installation to get rid of the NTLDR error.
I have to boot with the WinXP CD in the drive until I can find a feasible solution.
 
I seem to be having a hard time connecting my replies with the original statement. I'm having fuzzy thinker spells I suppose.

I meant that you didn't want "to go with the bottom of the line", when buying the new mobo.
I'm still a little confused about the part the IDE hard drive is playing in all of this.

Did we get it out of the boot order?
The new SATA won't boot without the Windows CD installed?
Did you find the boot menu in BIOS?

Actually I'm still back at wondering why you can't get over a 137GB partition with LBA enabled. Are you sure you saved the changes when you exited BIOS?

On the IDE buss, the DVD burner should be in the master position, and the DVD-ROM in the slave position. With Nero installed, (or similar), you would have direct drive to drive copy, bliss.
 
I haven't got the IDE out of the boot order. The method I was thinking of isn't there.

The SATA won't boot, giving me the NTLDR error, unless I have the CD in.
Weird, huh?

I've been changing the boot order back and forth as I've been trying to get this SATA to work, so that's no problem.

"Actually I'm still back at wondering why you can't get over a 137GB partition with LBA enabled. Are you sure you saved the changes when you exited BIOS?"

Yup, the drive comes up LBA..err..wait, maybe that was LRG? on boot.
Either way, it showed as 500gb in the BIOS, windows just wouldn't recognize it as such.

On the IDE buss, the DVD burner should be in the master position, and the DVD-ROM in the slave position. With Nero installed, (or similar), you would have direct drive to drive copy, bliss.
Ed Zachary (exactly)
 
I meant that you didn't want "to go with the bottom of the line", when buying the new mobo.
Click to expand...

No no, I knew what you meant...I think...
Why go IDE when you have SATA?
Less power, higher latency.
 
Ok, weird.
As stated before, the SATA won't boot without the CD.
I copied my files form the 120gb IDE and was going to do the same with the 100gb IDE, so I switch out the drives.
Oddly enough, I can't even access the copy of windows on the SATA with out the 120GB IDE installed and the copy of Windows on the 100 gb IDE is expired. :darth:

I know it was installed on the correct drive, but System config gives this boot bath for the SATA
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)/Windows="MSXP blah blah blah"/fastdetect/NoExecute=OptIn
Where as the 120 IDE's config is:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)/Windows="MSXP blah blah blah"/fastdetect/
PLUS the default drive is :
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)
That's the IDE.

I was going to try to remove it from the boot record, but the method I was thinking of was a Mac trick...no go.
My SATA is drive D: and set as a "boot", where the IDE is a "system" set as C: so that the SATA will boot with out an NTLDR error.
I'm at such a loss here. LOL

How do I get the system to NOT boot off the IDE? I've changed the boot record in the BIOS.
 
only read 127GB on vista 64bit os

just built my first computer same prob only read 127 GB , found away to fix, desktop search -enter "administrative tools" click on "computer management" then "storage" then go into "disk management" then you should be able to allocate your unallacated hard drive ,the missing bit,, good luck.
 
This could be a problem in the BIOS not being set for LBA (48 bit logical block addressing). It's not actually the fault of XP.

The BIOS HDD mode needs to be set to ACHI (Vista only) to boot from the SATA. Then change the boot order.

The 137 GB limit in the title is the fault of LBA not being enabled. The 127 GB number, not sure.
 
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