PCTech Forums

Hey, my computer is only recognizing 127 gigabytes of my 200 that I should have. What should I do about this problem. Here are my specs:
Motherboard:AOpen AK86-L
Hard Drive:Western Digital 200GB Hard Drive Caviar SE
OS: Windows XP Home Edition w/ SP1

You need to apply a Patch. Windows XP will only recognize up to 127GB or 137 GB of Hard Drive space. If you do not apply the patch, any data beyond 127GB, will be corrupted and no good.

Here is where you can get the patch from:

http://www.maxtor.com

You do not have to have a Maxtor HD, it works for any kind of Hard Drive. Let me know how it turns out.

I installed the patch but the problem is still occuring, although I did get the following information about my hard drive from MaxBlast 3. I don't know what all of it means, but maybe it can help.

MBR Partition Table:
Type: NTFS
Bootable: True
Begin CHS: N/A
End CHS: N/A
Size: 137436 MB

IDE Information:
Size:
LBA Sectors: 390721968(200.05 GB)
CHS: 24321x255x63(200.05 GB)

DMA:
MW DMA Support: 0,1,2
MW DMA Cycle Time: 120ns
Ultra DMA Support: 0,1,2,3,4,5
MW DMA: Active
Min Cycle/Word: 120ns
Ultra DMA Active: 5

Misc:
Firmware Revision: N/A
S.M.A.R.T. Support Disabled
ATA # Supported: 6,5,4,3,2
R/W Multiple: Yes
PIO Mode Support: 3,4
IORDY Support: Yes
Sectors/Block: 16
PIO Cycle Time: 120ns

Install Partition Magic, see if you have another partition.

I have managed to find a trial version of PartitionMagic 7.0
Here arethe results I got:

Disk: Partition: Type: Size MB: Used MB: Unused MB: Status: Pri/Log:
1 C: NTFS 131,061.5 17,383.2 113,678.3 Active Primary
1 *: Unallocated 59,718.2 0.0 0.0 None Primary

Hmm, sorry that didn't come out too good. But, it is saying I have unallocated space. I'm gonna go ahead and merge the 2.

Edit: Turns out I need the full version to do this, any alternatives?

Nope sorry. I don't use the program anywhere so I do not have it.

The reason you are not seeing the whole drive, is that your motherboard can only reconize a max of 137 meg. This is 2 to the 32 power.

In order to see the rest of the drive, you need to purchase and 48 bit IDE card (2 to the 48 power)so your system can reconize the rest of the hard drive.

I'm not familiar with the maxtor utility, but it sounds similar to a program called Rocket Drive. This program allowed a 2 gig hard drive system board see a 20 gig drive.
The biggest problem with it was when you put the drive in a system that could see the full 20. your data vaporized unless you knew what was happening--I don't recomend programs that alter the boot sector