320GB WD HDD detected as only 135GB?!?!

I purchased a WD 320GB hard drive but when I try to install windows on it its only detected as 135GB.

In the bios its coming up as 3200JB

Is this fixable or do I need to have it replaced?

 

What version of Windows?
Have you enabled LBA in BIOS?

 

its windows xp, its not SP2 perhaps 1..

I cant see where to enable LBA in BIOS. I have a k8n-e deluxe mobo but I haven't updated the bios since i got it.

the HDD is IDE by the way... if that makes any difference

 

It may be advisable to update! Sadly, I am not familiar with your BIOS, so I cannot say exactly where to enable LBA, but I can say you should check all settings relating to the HDD. IIRC, this setting is usually right on the first screen, where you can see the IDE master and slaves listed.

 

There are two inter-related areas with regard to drives that exceed the 137Gb capacity barrier. One is the need for 48bit LBA within windows to have partitions greater than this size and the other is to have a BIOS that is itself able to address a drive of that size.

Your Asus motherboard is certainly 48bit LBA enabled so it should have no issues in respect of detecting the 320Gb HD. In the first instance go into the bios and make sure this is the case ie the drive is correctly detected.

XP SP2 is certainly capable of supporting your new HD. SP1 should also in theory have no issues.

In the first instance look at the link below. Go to Disk Management and check out what windows actually says as I am guessing that you have taken your info ffrom My Computer.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=97878

Good Luck

 

IIRC windows xp sp1 cannot detect partitions greater than 137GB, sp2 can.

 

ok, I have updated the bios from 1006 to 1011. LBA is enabled now although it was probably before but I only remembered where the setting was during the upgrade

I will check out disk management. I noticed I was a few 180000 MB short during the initial setup of windows.

I have double checked XP it doesnt have SP1 or SP2 so I'm guessing that is where the problem is.

so a new version of xp with sp2 will fix this?

 

Yes, you'll need to have a Windows XP disc with SP2 on it in order to do a fresh install and be able to see the whole hard drive.

The other way you can do it is to upgrade to SP2, (through Automatic Updates) then use a program like Partition Magic to resize your hard drive to the full capacity. Or, you can just create a second partition using the remaining space.

 

SP2 will definitely work. SP1 should work though you would need to check the version of the Atapi.sys file.

I am running a 250Gb Seagate with XP SP1a and there are no issues whatsoever, presumably because it probably has a more up to date version of that file.

Good Luck

 

XP with SP2 fixed the problem..

thanks for all your help