Topic: XP Pre-SP1 and Hard Drive Size?

[gpw11]

Well, apparently XP doesn't recognize hard drives over 130 or so GB pre SP1.  The problem is that my installation disk is Pre-SP1, and when it formated the drive, I imagine it only formatted the limit.  Either way, updated SP2 windows doesn't recognize the drive as being over 127GB, which is kind of a bitch.  Does anyone know of any easy way to fix this other than reformatting and reinstalling with an updated XP disk?

Edit:  I should also point out this is a 130GB drive, and I suppose the loss of 30GB could be to the whole mislabeling lie, but my not very informed math put the loss somewhere between 10-15 GB, rather then a full 33 or so.  Yes/no?

[Xessive]

Um.. 130 - 127 = 3.. Or so I was taught to believe.

[Pugnate]

OK... what?

First it is a 130 GB HD and you say it is being recognized as 127. But then you say you are losing 33? That would mean it is being recognized as 97?

Also I've formatted 200GB HD's with pre SP1 XP CDs without issue. Maybe it is because I partitioned the 200 into four or five bits?

Anyway you could try and see what they say on the anandtech forums.

[Cobra951]

Pre SP1, Windows XP could not handle long addressing of HDD partitions, making the hard limit 137 GB per partition.  The HDD itself can be as big as the hardware can handle.  I think this limit only applies to internal drives.  External ones I guess have their own handler for getting to the data, because I have no problems with using or formatting a 320-GB external drive with my no-SP XP.

[scottws]

Update your BIOS?  I don't know.

Btw, you can create a new XP install disc with SP2 pre-installed.  Check out something called nLite.  I used it just last week to update my XP Pro RTM disc to XP Pro SP2 with all hotfixes up to that point.

[iPPi]

Yea Pre SP1, XP can only detect an HDD size of roughly 120GB or so.

You can easily update your XP CD to incorporate SP1 into it though.

[Cobra951]

Yea Pre SP1, XP can only detect an HDD size of roughly 120GB or so.

You can easily update your XP CD to incorporate SP1 into it though.

Again I'll stress that the drives themselves can be whatever size the hardware (and BIOS) supports.  The limit is per partition.  So for example, you can use a 500-GB drive if you split it up into 4 or 5 partitions.

Edit:  Another approach I've heard of is to create a relatively small partition (20-40 GB) and a large partition to cover the rest of the drive.  The system (e.g., Windows) is installed on the small partition.  Then you can update it to support LBA, and then format and use the large partition as your data drive.

[gpw11]

Sorry, that was a bad typo on my part.  It's a 160GB drive, but windows only recognizes about 127GB.


From what you say, it's the partition size that can't be recognized, and pre-sp1 probably only formated the maximum amount it could upon initial install.  I'll definitely make a new XP disk like you suggested, but do you think it would be plausible to use partition magic to just create another small partition out of the space that "doesn't exist" in windows?  I don't really like messing with PM since I have no idea what I'm actually doing.

[Cobra951]

Can't you create a smallish partition, leave the rest unformatted/unpartitioned, install XP, upgrade to SP1, then deal with partitioning & formatting the rest of the drive?  My Dell still has a 40-GB and an 80-GB drive, so this is simply not an issue for me.  I've not had to deal with it, so I'm unfamiliar with the pitfalls.  Anyway, check this page for some good info.  Follow the link provided there into the MS KB on the 137-GB limit and solutions.

[gpw11]

I could, if I wanted to reformat windows, but I don't really feel like backing up all my data right now. 

Anyways, thanks for the link.  Chances are what I'll do is just back everything up on a (hopefully now recognizable in SP2) new, larger HDD in the next few weeks, and then reformat this one and reinstall XP without having to burn a ton of DVDs.

[scottws]

Sorry, that was a bad typo on my part.  It's a 160GB drive, but windows only recognizes about 127GB.


From what you say, it's the partition size that can't be recognized, and pre-sp1 probably only formated the maximum amount it could upon initial install.  I'll definitely make a new XP disk like you suggested, but do you think it would be plausible to use partition magic to just create another small partition out of the space that "doesn't exist" in windows?  I don't really like messing with PM since I have no idea what I'm actually doing.

Just change it to a dynamic volume and expand it to the rest of the disk.

Edit: Oh wait, you can't do that on system volumes.  Yeah, just use Partition Magic.

[Pugnate]

Yea I was going to say Partition Magic.

Just be careful. I've had success and major disappointments with it.

[scottws]

Well, he'd be expanding a volume, not shrinking it.  So the risk of a major issue is very low.  I've used PM to shrink partitions a couple of times and it worked perfectly each time.

[Pugnate]

Right, I've actually never tried to expand.

edit:

It worked brilliantly for me every time. Then one time I wanted to combine to partitions, and everything just crashed.