Unallocated disk space

I have a 250 GB drive that I've wiped clean, meaning, zeroes over the whole disk. Upon trying to install a fresh copy of XP, it's telling me that I have only 130GB in available disk space. How can I recover this unallocated space? Thanks so much.

 

is the disk you are using xp sp1?if so then once its updated to sp2 you can use partition magic or equivalent software to stretch partition or you can create a partition on remaining drive

 

It is running SP2. Is there another way that doesn't require expensive software? I'm also interested in knowing why my drive space was cut in half upon the clean install.

 

A linux live CD will allow you to see what is on the 250 GB hard drive.
To partition, you can use
diskdrake http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=114142
gparted http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
qtparted http://qtparted.sourceforge.net/

From the links, it appears that the safest might be diskdrake. Note, you do not need to install a distro to partition a hd. I've booted a live PCLinux CD and partitioned a few hard drives. I'm not sure if I was using Diskdrake because I was using an older version of PCLinux.