Why does my Samsung HDD which is supposed to be 160Gb only show total disc size 127Gb????

what OS you runnning? if you have windows XP make sure you have SP1 installed.......and if not you may have to partition it out.....

Thanks Chrome Rust, It is XP!

Can i just load SP1 now and will that fix it?

should....

Mineaswell go straight to SP2 RC1 while your at it.

I was going to load SP1 then use partition magic to partition the drive up into 2 or 3 sections.

partition1 for XP and patches (maybe 10Gb, is this too much?)
partition2 for applications (15Gb for HTPC software)
partition3 for video data that will change on a weekly basis (balance of HDD)

What do you think?

how old (relitively) is your PC? coz your BIOS maybe out of date, or too old to recognise a drive of that size. Suggest an update? Otherwise partitions generally use space to make partitons (in effect) say you had a 10GB hard drive. When you format a drive in dos and partition it it take off a certation % of space. Partitions generally remove 500MB per 10GB. Formatting reduces it further, possibly 200mb. When you get larger drives the area required by partitions gets larger - in other words your drive may already be fully formatted.

Quote: Originally Posted by GLO I was going to load SP1 then use partition magic to partition the drive up into 2 or 3 sections. partition1 for XP and patches (maybe 10Gb, is this too much?) partition2 for applications (15Gb for HTPC software) partition3 for video data that will change on a weekly basis (balance of HDD) What do you think?

I see no reason putting applications on a partition seperate from the O/S because if the O/S is damaged the programs will never be usable again anyway. My setup is:
One for O/S and installed applications.
And Two for Movies, Music, and Applications (the actual setup files not the program install directory)

Quote: Originally Posted by nev_payne how old (relitively) is your PC? coz your BIOS maybe out of date, or too old to recognise a drive of that size. Suggest an update? Otherwise partitions generally use space to make partitons (in effect) say you had a 10GB hard drive. When you format a drive in dos and partition it it take off a certation % of space. Partitions generally remove 500MB per 10GB. Formatting reduces it further, possibly 200mb. When you get larger drives the area required by partitions gets larger - in other words your drive may already be fully formatted.

Its all brand spanking new.

Quote: Originally Posted by TekXoID Mineaswell go straight to SP2 RC1 while your at it.

I was thinking of installing sp2, i've got sp1a now, do you think its worth it?

Quote: Originally Posted by TekXoID I see no reason putting applications on a partition seperate from the O/S because if the O/S is damaged the programs will never be usable again anyway. My setup is: One for O/S and installed applications. And Two for Movies, Music, and Applications (the actual setup files not the program install directory)

Just trying to keep things neat since the Movies.music and data will be very busy and will need defrag regularly i think

Quote: Originally Posted by GLO Just trying to keep things neat since the Movies.music and data will be very busy and will need defrag regularly i think

Has anybody ever noticed that after doing a defrag their computer runs slower then before? This is what it seems like when I do it. Defragmenting is BS.

Quote: Originally Posted by TekXoID Has anybody ever noticed that after doing a defrag their computer runs slower then before? This is what it seems like when I do it. Defragmenting is BS.

I would imagine that it would mean less HDD activity cause it wouldnt hav eto look allround the HDD for the next related piece of data. So i guess it has to represent some savings, whether that is time or HDD life?

Quote: Originally Posted by GLO I would imagine that it would mean less HDD activity cause it wouldnt hav eto look allround the HDD for the next related piece of data. So i guess it has to represent some savings, whether that is time or HDD life?

The idea is to spread data out accross the disk but it always worsens performance for me. See for yourself.

Quote: Originally Posted by TekXoID The idea is to spread data out accross the disk but it always worsens performance for me. See for yourself.

Umm...no. The idea is reorganize your data so it's contiguous. So your movie file that used to have a few hundred megs at the beginning of the disk and a few hundred in the middle (etc.) is now all stored contiguously. Because of this there is a performance increase.

Since it's a fresh install I assume you're running NTFS, and if you're not, you might as well convert it now while the OS is still young.

Don't make the mistake I did causing me to corrupt two of my 200gig drives. I had them all formatted and had them full of data and was running XP Home with SP1 without activating, and then I switched to my copy of XP Pro and activated, but hadn't installed SP1, and it appeared like 200gigs were there but then I was copying and stuff and both the drives corrupted. Dunno if thats related to not having SP1, but damn I was pissed. I installed SP1 and loaded my backup's onto the drives and all is well again, but I was mad.

RIght now,XP (NTFS) is still only recognising 127Gb, i have only loaded XP and 2 programs. Total HDD space used is less than 6Gb (includes XP and SP1)

I installed Partition Magic 7.0 and it recognises that there is an un-names partition type "Extended" that is 21,563.8Mb and the its listed as used Mb and its status is "none" and its showing as "primary".

Should i

1. start fresh again and use XP to partition 7Gb for the OS then the remainder try to activate using Partition Magic?

2. Try to use Partition Magic to enable that "extended space"? Ifso, i would need help as i havent used PM7 before!

Regards
GLO

The extended partition is what secondary partitions go into to, delete it and join that now unused space up with the WinXP partition and it'll be 160 GB. But, I'd backup first, whenever I mess around with partitions and stuff I like to play it safe, unless 7 GBs worth of installation is worth the loss.

Your hardware may limit you to 127 GB partitions - I would start all over and use the hard drive manufacturers utility to partition the drive as you see fit - with partitions smaller than 127 obviously. The below was clipped for WDs website.

Problem
The full capacity of EIDE drives larger than 137GB (128GB binary) is not recognized in Windows 2000/XP.

Resolution
48-bit LBA support is necessary for drives larger than 137GB (128GB binary). The following conditions are necessary for the correct functioning of 48-bit LBA support in Windows 2000/XP:

* Windows XP Service Pack 1 (SP1) must be installed for Windows XP versions prior to August 2002. For information about SP1, see Microsoft Article 322389.


* The system must have a 48-bit LBA-compatible Basic Input/Output System (BIOS) installed. This includes EIDE controller card BIOSs.


* You must enable the support in the Windows registry.