Hard drive problems

[ddd]

I have a 40 GB hard drive and when I boot up my computer it only reads as it ia a 20 GB hard drive. I have a pentium 2 Gateway 2000 computer, please help.

 

[etones]

have u tryed removing the hard drive then puting it back in

 

[sundewzer]

Have you updated you bios? some older bios versions don't like high GB hdd, but 40 shouldn't be a problem. Just a thought.

 

[patio]

More info...
What OS ?
Is this a used drive?
When did you first notice this ?

patio.

 

[Prozak]

Is it when the BIOS detects the drive or is it in the os
BIOS-

Check your BIOS settings first (usually you press delete at the first screen you see), it should be set to auto for the IDE drive that your hard drive is on unless you enjoy entering cylinders and heads...

If the first step does not solve it then look on your motherboard and see what model your motherboard is then google it to find a bios update and follow instructions to flash the BIOS[you might be able to go to gateway and enter your model number and get the bios update (careful when doing a BIOS flash if this is done wrong then you can render your motherboard useless)].

If no update is available then check in to partitioning the hard drive to smaller sizes, you do this with the software enclosed in maxtor drives (I don't know about anyothers). Also with a boot disk for windows 98 using fdisk you will be able to partition the drive.

Operating System
If you are using Linux goto terminal and hit fdisk -l tell me what it reads
If you are using Windows XP then you set up your format wrong two options reformat the entire drive, or get a win 98 disk and set up the second partion with fat32 then goto windows xp and reformat to ntfs (optional but recommended).

Hope this helps

 

[sundewzer]

I have to say Prozak good idea with with win 98 disk.