Perplexing hard drive problem

I've got this weird hard drive problem where the 500 gig hard drive is only being recognized as something like 127 gigs. Background info to follow...

Put together my first system from pieces...

gigabyte ma790xt-ud4p motherboard
Amd Phenom II x2 550 Black edition
Barracuda 7200.11 SATA 3Gb/s 500-GB Hard Drive
Nvidia geforce 9600 GT video card
Gskill 2x2gig ddr3 1600 ram

Perhaps that info isnt needed..perhaps more is needed...
Here is what I did...assembled it..followed comp. magazine instructions, etc...
tried to just take my old ide 80 gig drive out of my system and put it into the new machine(this is not the hard drive i am currently having problems with)
I then tried to boot it up...got an error message something like amd mismatch with dmi (something with those words anyway) and it wouldnt boot , though i could enter the bios.
I then tried the 500 gig drive which I had in an external case which I had cloned the 80 gig onto(using Acronis True Image)...this being a sata drive rather that IDE I had my hopes it would work. It did not. So...I then found my old xp disk , with the idea that I'd use the 500 gig and do a fresh install of good ol' XP. Had it boot from XP CD...started the format...I think before the format process, it offered me a choice of doing something with something that in hindsight looks to be a 133 gig partition...I thought i chose the right option to overwrite it...then after the format, xp started its installation...and had to do a restart. When the computer restarted...it again gave me the error message, and locked up. I started the xp installation from cd again...hoping it would pick up where it left off...but it didnt...it started doing a fresh install...however THIS time I chose the other option and I think reformatted the entire disk...(was still showing something like a 133 gig partition). This time it managed to format, start the install, reboot, STILL receive the error message, but then continued and finished the install...which made me very happy.

Then after downloading service packs I notice that my 500 gig drive is only listed as 127 gig under MY computer. Sisandra lists it as 500 gig...Other programs see it as 500 gig.

So...what do I do to make 500 gig?

Sorry for the confusing post, but its really difficult for me to know what is relevant to this problem and what is not. I still receive that error message when starting the computer...but it just goes past it. The only other problem that I have is that my downloading of files has dropped from a normal 150~160kb/s to 30-40 kb/s. I know that probably should be another post...or perhaps its just some local problem...but again, I try to err on the side of too much info rather than too little.

Thanks in advance...

p.s. Is there anyway for me to find those service packs for xp on my computer...burn them to a cd or dvd, so I don't have to do the tedious download?

Edit: The error message is: AMD data change update new data to DMI

 

You don't really have a weird HD problem.
The original XP disk with no service packs would only recognise 127GB's .
Once the SP's are added it will recoognize the full size

What you need to do is slipstream SP2 into a XP disk,

http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_sp2_slipstream.asp

Or use XXClone to copy XP from a smaller HD to the bigger after XP is updated.
[This is the option I would use]

Download XXClone,

http://www.xxclone.com/xxclone.zip

Extract & install

Make sure the larger drive is installed & formatted

Open XXClone
On the first page make sure you have:

Source Volume C
Target volume F

Click on the Cool Tools tab
Click on Make Bootable
Put checkmarks in all 3 boxes
Click Start
When the box opens click Yes
When the blue progress line is done click Exit
Click Start
Click Yes
Do the clone

Here is the online manual for XXClone if you need it,

http://www.xxclone.com/ixcman00.htm

I have used XXClone many times.
The only thing I have found that doesn't clone is AVG anti-virus
I just uninstall it before I clone & reinstall it when I'm done.

 

Thank you for your reply...it makes sense. However I am still at a problem. I did download and install all the windows updates, prior to the posting here. My computer is showing service pack 3 installed. Is there a way to rectify the problem? Or perhaps I am not understanding the instructions given.

Please continue to advise me while I examine your reply more carefully.

Thanks again.

 

You have to have the SP on the XP disk when XP is installed,

You can go to the Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management
,since you have the SP installed now the rest of the HD should show as "raw" or unformatted space ,
You should be able to create a partition out of it [extended] & then format it.
How to do that here,

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348

You can skip the "Prepare the hard disk according to the manufacturer's instructions" part

BTW, I wouls have installed the original, smaller drive with XP on it, installed the new drive & formatted the whole thing, & the used XXClone to make the new drive bootable & copied the old drive to it.
Once the 80GB IDE drive was removed the 500GB SATA would become C by default.

I posted instructions & a link to the XXClone online manual .

 

I DID try to simply transfer my 80 gig IDE drive over, and also the 500 gig had a clone of that drive (via Acronis True Image)
I could not however get the 80 gig IDE nor the 500 gig sata to boot on the machine. I received the error message I spoke of in my previous post, and the operating system would not boot up.

I only had success with the 500 gig after I did the xp install. And it became 127 gig...

Thanks for your post. I will try and do what you suggested.

 

Thank you. I did as you suggested, via the disk management route and did in find the large hunk of unformatted drive. I formatted it and it is now useable. So i now have a partitioned hard drive...which is fine.

Thanks again.