250GB internal HD only reading as 32GB???

[videotape74]

hey folks...

my friend just picked up a brand new WD 250GB internal IDE drive and he's trying to format it so he can install XP on it as his master/primary drive. this will be the only drive connected to the IDE, so he went into the XP setup (boot from disk) and it's only reading it as a 32GB hard drive. has this happened to anyone before and if so, does anyone have a solution/fix? thanks very much for any help...

...btw, the manual said that some large hard drives have problems with BIOS older than '99 but I know that can't be the problem because I installed a brand new Asus board for him a couple weeks ago.

[Soopafresh]

Have him try initializing the drive with one of the boot disks from http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

[t0nee1]

You have to partition before you can format.... boot from win disk and follow instructions to partition . Is the pc set to boot from cd/dvdrom?
I've also used this method in the past..
Install new drive as slave, partition and format in windows ,then take out and replace old drive with new partitioned 250g drive and set as master, boot from Win disk and install OS.....
Sorry about my edits, bad spelling!!!!

[thevoelk]

In addition, two other possibilities:

1) He needs to slipstream SP1/SP2 into his XP install disk, though I think XP will detect up to 137GB without either Service Pack.

2) He set the jumpers on the drive wrong, limiting it to 32GB. I'm not sure if all drive manufacturers have this option, but the IBM/Hitachi drive I have on my desk has a jumper setting for this.

Does the BIOS see the drive as the correct size?

[oldandinthe way]

Did it leave the factory with a 32mb partition full of Western Digital Software? (I think it did - by creating this small partition I believe WD makes its utility software available to older system owners).

Did he run any of the WD utilities on the drive?

Did he edit or create any new partitions?

Did he read the installation instructions which came with the drive?

[ofbarea]

..btw, the manual said that some large hard drives have problems with BIOS older than '99 but I know that can't be the problem because I installed a brand new Asus board for him a couple weeks ago.

Some disk drives have a jumper to limit the size reported to the PC. Perhaps this disk has the jumper set this way.

[lordsmurf]

BIOS