Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II Query

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Vidar

Vidar

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Hello guys,
I have the Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB SATA-II 32MB Cache in my system and when installing Xp it only allowed me to set the partition at 127.99GB. Once windows was installed I was able to format and partition the remaining available space which came to 468.18GB all in all this comes to a total of 596.17GB this means that im 43.83GB short! :confused: Can someone please give me an explanation as to why and if I need to reformat, which i dont mind doing, can someone explain how best to get the full potential out of the drive.
 
1) The drive is 640 Gigabytes, ie 640 x 10^9 bytes. Windows counts in Gibabytes (1024 * 1024 * 1024 bytes) but labels them as Gb. If you divide 640x10^9 by 1024^3 you get 596 odd.

2) If you want the full capacity available you need to install XP using a disk with at least SP1 slipstreamed onto it to give 48bit LBA support for partitions greater than 128Gib.
 
download xp sp3 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...A8-5E76-401F-BE08-1E1555D4F3D4&displaylang=en
install .net 2.0 on your pc http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CB-4362-4B0D-8EDD-AAB15C5E04F5&displaylang=en (or 3.5)
install nlite http://www.nliteos.com/download.html

copy your XP disk to C:\XPCD\


load up nlite.
type C:\XPCD into this screen.. http://www.nliteos.com/guide/pictures/a2.jpg
select 'slipstream service pack' and 'bootable iso' on this screen http://www.nliteos.com/guide/pictures/a6.jpg

don't select anything else.

in the burning screen, choose 'direct burn'

insert a blank cdr and burn to it.

now you have an XP SP3 cd.
 
Bledd your are an absolute legend! Though it means a reformat... Ahwells id rather full access to what I got than not
 
NW_SKINHEAD said:
Bledd your are an absolute legend! Though it means a reformat... Ahwells id rather full access to what I got than not
Click to expand...

You seem to be under the misapprehension that you'll be able to have access to the full 640GB on reinstalling XP with SP3. The only difference you will have with regards to the HDD is your OS partition can be up to the size of the drive. You will have no more drive space than you do currently. The discrepancies in disk space are to do with disk sizes in binary, which is correct and what the OS reads, and in base 10, which hard drive manufacturers advertise. Thus, my 1TB drives (which should each hold 1024 gibibytes - binary) actually hold 1000 gigabytes (base 10), which equates to 931 gibibytes.

So your 640 gigabyte drive has only 596ish gibibytes of space, so that is all the OS will report back to you.
Sucks, but we gotta live with it!
 
That does indeed suck, though im more interested in the partition size for the time being
 
Do you really need to reformat? I know in Vista it allows you to "extend" a partition. I did this with my HTPC after making a 40GB OS partition and regretting it. I went in to disk management, deleted the secondary partition, then clicked on the primary (OS) partiton and selected "Extend volume" - it auto showed the entire space available for the rest of the hard drive, I clicked ok and bingo, one full size partition.
 
You can't do that with the tools available in the XP disk management, but there are a few tools out there that let you manipulate partitions within Windows - Partition Magic 8 for example (at least, that's the version I have, but I think they've been taken over or something now), and its not free (although there may be a trial version, I don't know). If you've literally just installed XP though, I'd probably do the fresh install.
 
should have said..

what the XPSP3 disc will let you do is install directly to the 596gb partition, and not be limited to 127gb

-always better to install fresh with an up to date cd too..


you could easily use something like gparted live boot cd to extend the current partition instead
 
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