Win XP - Incorrect Drive Space during install

[pacmania_2001]

I'm just installing Windows XP on a computer with a 160GB hard drive and when I am in the initial setup for partitioning it only reports that 131GB exists.

Does anyone know what causes this and how to fix the problem?

Cheers

[redwudz]

XP is probably using the rest of your drive space. Try this:Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management. Check the size of your HD partitions, you may see where it went

[stiltman]

I'm just installing Windows XP on a computer with a 160GB hard drive and when I am in the initial setup for partitioning it only reports that 131GB exists.

Does anyone know what causes this and how to fix the problem?

Cheers

What I would try.

Check my BIOS 1st
Load the IDE driver that came with the motherboard/PCI card when prompted for mass storage device drivers

Put the drive in another computer and partition and format it.

Sorry, I couldn't find anything specific to your problem on Technet

[The village idiot]

That sounds a lot like a bios problem. Wasn't that the limit on most of the older Bios?

[holistic]

Rules for the 160 gb+ drives -

1. XP Sp1 at least
2. atapi.sys of 1135 or greater

What mobo ? . Older bios has issues with 137Gb barrier
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_winxp.html
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;322389

You knew this : http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=136

][

[Solarjetman]

You could also be using an ATA100 IDE controller. They are limited to 137GB. If this is the case, you will need to purchase a ATA133 controller or live with the lost space.

[pacmania_2001]

I am using a new(ish) Asus A7N8X(?)-Deluxe motherboard and all the rest of the components are reasonably new.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try them out and see how it goes but it's not really a big deal.

Having gone from 8GB to 160GB it doesn't really bother me that much.

[whatupdet]

Service pack 1 should solve the problem(or new mobo but thats not the case for you)
Just so you know; your 160gb hard drive will only read at most 149.01Gb since 160gb means 160billion bytes then you need to divide by 1024(since 1024mb=1gb 1024kb=1mb 1024b=1kb) then again by 1024 then again by 1024 to reach your actual gb's. so 160000000000/1024/1024/1024=149.01GB

[koolaidwa]

You could also be using an ATA100 IDE controller. They are limited to 137GB. If this is the case, you will need to purchase a ATA133 controller or live with the lost space.

u are miss informed lil buddy,only hd's to use ata133 are maxtors, lol, windows is the prob on this one, u need sp1 with xp to be able to get full use out of drives larger then 137gb, ata100 and ata133 have nothing to do with limiting the drive space, have a great day

[Solarjetman]

Looks like dead threads walk among us this evening. And talk about irony, I now own this exact model of mobo.

Well, I was technically wrong. I should have said "some are limited".

In actually it is the LBA addressing mode that causes the problem, not the speed. A few years ago, before ATA/133 came on the scene but after ATA/100, controllers used 28 bit addressing. But manufacturers had switched to the 48-bit addressing by the time ATA/133 was released.

But yes, it was not the cause of pacmania's problem. However, I did not know anything about that mobo then which is why I said anything at all.