Unexplainable loss in hard drive space.

Hello.

I just want to start by saying I hate Windows Vista, Future Shop and Acer.

My girlfriend wanted to buy a new computer a few weeks back so we went to Future Shop and bought an Acer Aspire computer.

Specs:

Windows Vista
AMD Athlon 64 3500+
512 Ram - 64 shared for video
160 gig SATA hard drive... supposedly
DVD burner

All for $599. It was an okay deal.

We get the computer home and I take off Vista. I don't like Vista and we don't need Vista. We bought this computer because the specs were good for running Windows XP Home. I suggested we put XP on for now and wait a year until Vista is bettered by updates and all the bugs are worked out.

The problem began when I was installing XP. In Vista the 160 gig hard drive showed the proper amount of space to use once the drive is formatted and such - 153 gigs. I know you lose some space when you format. When I went to install XP the maximum space I was allowed to use was only 121 gigs total!!!! That's not right. I'm no noob and did everything (I guess not everything if I can't figure this out) I could to make XP recognize the missing 32 gigs of space. I even put Vista back on and partitioned the drive in a number of different ways so XP would recognize the space. Nothing worked. I had two 76 gig partitions, installed XP on one. At first everything looked normal but when I restarted the computer the second partitioned said that 32 gigs of space had been used up already!!!! I tried formatting the partition but it failed to and said there was an error reading the partition.

I took the computer back and complained and the techs didn't know what the hell I was talking about. I demanded another computer to replace the one I bought, took it home and it did the exact same thing! This really pissed me off. For some reason XP can't recognize the whole 160 gigs, but Vista can. ?????

I girlfriend decided she could live with 121 gigs and I installed XP, but then another problem came to be. I was missing drivers to make everything work!!!! The computer never came with a motherboard disk!!!! I went to the Acer site and downloaded the drivers but they didn't work. It said they were for the computer model that we bought but they weren't. That made me so angry.

We ended up using Vista since we had to.

Can anyone tell me why XP can't recognize the entire drive??????? Does the hard drive need drivers to be recognized by XP? I've never heard of that before. Is it because the drive is a SATA? It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Someone please give me the answer!!!!!

 

Do you have SP2 or at least SP1 installed on XP?

 

No. Will the service packs contain the drivers or whatever to recognize the rest of the space? Why would you need the service packs to recognize all the space?

 

since you are installing from a pre SP1 XP CD you will need to format the first 137 GB and install. Then use a utility such as Partition Magic or Partition Commander to resize the partition to the whole drive. SP1/2 will not do this on their own as Windows does not unfortunately include a resizing command for partitions.

There may be a free MG utility for resizing, perhaps another Geek might list it?

Studio T

 

I've been doing some reading on the internet about similar hard drive problems and it is clear that I need drivers. I have a new question though. In this thread and other places of information regarding my problem it's stated that XP would only recognize 137 gigs of hard drive space, but mine is only recognized as 121. Does that mean I have a similar but different problem? If because I don't have any service packs installed for XP and that I need drivers shouldn't the 160 gig drive I have be recognized as only 137 instead of 121? Does that matter?

Also, I don't think I'd be able to do windows updates because the computer didn't come with a motherboard driver disk and when I go to the Acer website the drivers to download say they're not compatible with my system resulting in an ethernet port that doesn't work.

My computer is an Acer T180 and the page I go to says that the drivers are for models E380 and T180, but when I try to install them they say they aren't compatible.

Here's a link:
http://www.acerpanam.com/synapse/fo...ada&siteid=7297&areaid=17&formid=3394#results

Computers are so fun.

 

The manual is pretty useless, but it does ,more or less, thst sp2 is needed, in XP. OR, XP Pro.
And it very nicely says Vista. 9i agree on that - my Vista is staying in its' box, for a while, too.
It would seem that you will need SP2, installed to possibly get much further, then the drivers , might well load.

 

The system chipset is

nVidia MCP61S + MCP61P

A quick search says that nvidia is producing updated drivers later this year, so Acer may have them , later, too.

 

I had an Acer motherboard x64 capable,a couple/ threes ago.
It was a nightmare tracing the drivers, and bios update, but it gave me good service, for a few years - did not getting hot though, as it did with my 3gb Intel presscot. Acer never were best,for getting drivers,but have improved a little. Check your Bios date, too.
I am sure that, if you have downloaded, and saved all the drivers, and you update to SP2, you will have a good chance of loading the drivers.

 

Is the not compatible message from ACER or from Microsoft about not digitally signed? If it is a microshaft message just go ahead an install.

I looked at the acer page, perhaps this site will give you better drivers, and loading advice.

http://support.acer-euro.com/drivers/desktop/aspire_t180.html

You might also look at these two Major Geek offerings for windows service packs and other updates.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/AutoStreamer_d4444.html

http://www.majorgeeks.com/AutoPatcher_XP_Full_d4901.html


Just go ahead with whatever size drive yo uhave and resize it later.

Studio T

 

Sorry to let this go for so long without replying.

Thanks to all who helped me try to figure out and solve my problem. I never did come to a conclusion on what the problem was or I should say I never solved the problem because it was my girlfriends computer and we recently split.

She'll have to stick with Vista.

Thanks again for the people who replied and helped.

 

C'est la vie.

Bonne chance

Studio T