Formatting a 200 GB hard drive

Hello.

I just got a 200 GB hard drive for my computer. The computer is running Windows 2000. The problem I am having is that it is only finding 130 Gigs on this hard drive when I format it. I have tryed the disk management tool and also Partition Magic 8, but with both tools I am missing the rest of the space. It is not seeing it at all. The thing I want to do with this is split it into two 100 GB drives. I have googled some to see if I could find anything but all I find is how to format a hard drive and not get it all. I dont know what to do. Any help is appreciated.
Thanks ahead of time.

Yes, there is a BIOS cut off point at (I think) 128Gb, although some BIOSES will show up to 138GB

1. Look for a BIOS upgrade from your MoBo manufacturer.
2. Look for an installation tool from the HDD manufacturer's site.

From what I gather #1 is considered a more elegant solution than #2

Good luck :)

What do you mean by a BIOS update?
When I installed the HD, it detected it as being 200 GB.

OK, I was a bit brief, but I did not want to offend :)

BIOS stands for Basic Input Output System. Together with CMOS, you might like to think of it as your motherboard's operating system............it handles your hardware/peripherals, whilst your operating system handles your software/applications. Old versions of BIOS frequently cannot understand and handle newer components and peripheral devices.

This BIOS is supplied to you by your motherboard manufacturer, pre-installed on dedicated chips on the motherboard. Typically you might see Award (used to be Phoenix?) and AMI (American Megatrends) as the suppliers. If you go to the MOTHERBOARD manufacturer's site, you should see if there is a new BIOS release, or a fix for large hard drives over 128/138 Gigabytes.

Quote:

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When I installed the HD, it detected it as being 200 GB.

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What is "IT", the BIOS or the operating system? If you used a hard drive installation disk, then you might have failed to instal the large drive enabling program that I mentioned.

To check, boot into "setup" and look at the drive details in your BIOS. Is it 200Mb? Then look into yourWindows Explorer...............what does Windows think that it is.

It would help if you could tell me:

1. Make and model of computer (or motherboard)
2. Operating system service pack (SP)

Cheers

And the bios version. It will show right when you boot your computer up.

Ok, well "it" is the BIOS I think. "It" is the thing i go into to set the boot sequence, system time, etc. I am putting it in quotes that way you know that they are both the same things.

The motherboard is PC Chips FSB333 K7 Motherboard, Model M825G version 9.2a I believe. It is a brand new motherboard because I just finished replacing my old burnt out one.
The Operating system is Windows 2000 with all the latest updates and service packs, I think.
The hard drive didn't come with any kind of disket or stuff. It just came with a piece of paper that said something about a static warning.
Thank you

I found the website, its http://www.pcchipsusa.com/download-mainframe.asp to download the patch there. I don't know if I should or if it will help.

I will get back to you tomorrow.............I need to sleep :)

Yes, the "it" is the BIOS.........that board shipped with AMI (American Megatrends BIOS)

Cheers

Alright, thanks. I don't know what to do with this dumb machine.

What make of hard drive is it?

If you reboot now and go into set up, what is the drive "seen" as?

What does Windows "see" it as (right click and "properties")

You might run chkdsk and see if there are any errors on the drive?

Cheers

This is the hard drive http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicati...p?EdpNo=423018

When I go into setup and click on Auto detect for the slave drive, it finds it as 200.1 GB.
Windows is reading it as a 128 GB hard drive.
chkdsk doesn't find anything.

Firstly, thank you for your patience and perseverance :D

I think that this might be the answer:

Quote:

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Please Note: In order to properly access the full capacity of an ATA interface hard drive or partition larger than 137GB and properly support 48-bit logical block addressing, Windows XP Service Pack 1 or Windows 2000 Service Pack 4 are required. This issue does not affect SCSI hard drives.

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Have you updated your Windows, as that seems to be where the problem is? You need Service Pack 4

Cheers

:)

I have updated it and it is at service pack 4. It still hasn't found the rest of it.
Thanks again for your help.

I dont know if you thought it was fixed because of the way i said it earlyer, but I have had service pack 4 the entire time and it is still only finding 128 gb of my hard drive. Should I apply that patch from the motherboard web site or somewhere else?

OK, go here:

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n

And get Western Digital's Data lifeguard installation and diagnostics tools.

See if they help :)

Also get Belarc Advisor and run it. Down the bottom on the left you should see your Windows updates and IF THEY WORKED ;) ..................the MS update site does not do that.

Alright, cool. Those two programs worked.
Thanks alot.

Glad to hear you got it fixed mate!.................sorry it took so long, but we got there in the end?

:D