I just got a 160gb seagate hdd and XP only shows it as 127gb, now the odd thing is my BIOS reads it as 160gb so i dont think its the 48-bit Logical Block thing. i downloaded SP1 witch should have fixed the prob but no luck.
Hey If the Bios detects drive as 160Gb try getting free Partition Magic and 'stretch' the existing partition. You could also create another partition and split the drive into two. http://www.soft32.com/download_151.html
Drives knackered mate. Had a few my self some would be picked up as the correct size in the bios and not on windows and others came up wrong in bios and diferent agian in windows One seagate drive i had came up with diferent drive sizes in windows everytime i rebooted. Try checking the disk for bad secters if you wish. I found a number of seagate drives brand new out of the vacume sealed bag with bad secters on them. I found out later a number of manufacturers sometimes recondition drives and sell as new. I only fit IBM (hitachi same company) deskstar drives and have never had a bad one, did you know that some company's who make military spec pc's will only allow ibm to be fitted as they are so dependable and robust....... trust me i used to test them for one company.
I installed SP2 and then went to the Computer Management app in the control panal, and it reads my hdd as 160gb and also lets me make a new partition with the missing 20gb but it will not let me delete the partition and just have the 1 partition of 160gb so am thinking my BIOS is the prob and will not work with the 48-bit thing even though is reads the 160gb. So i need a new mother with a bios that supports 48-bit or a disk controller. btw my motherboard is a jetway p4845pebl (rubbish)
towards the top left at post screen will show maker of bios(ami or award) than date & bios version ex. 1005 & at the bottom left of screen will give a long id# string. so note the bios version you have, go to this link & find newer bios if available for your motherboard but i've already checked & is a10 11.11.03 http://www.jetway.com.tw/evisn/index.html
I downloaded the bios update file from the jetway sites, the only thing is its in .bin format and i dont know how to update the bios with it, do i need to stick it on a floppy disk? Iam kinda sure that the bios file i downloaded is newer than the current bios, seeing how the new bios file was out a year after the board was made.