250gb reading as 127..what havent i tried?

[scottrussell]

hey, i know this topic is talked about in the sticky thread but ive done everything it has said to do in there and my 250gb still shows up as 127gb. im trying to use this hard drive as my primary drive. this is the hardware i'm using:

Asus P4P800SE motherboard with native SATA support
Maxtor 250gb SATA w/16mb cache

I have windows 2000 server running (not using it for a server..but thats the version it is), i downloaded service pack4 express after i installed windows, and i changed the registry key after installation found here ( http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...kb;en-us;305098 )
and it still doesnt come up as 250gb...
my drive reads as 251gb in my bios.

am i missing anything...have i done anything wrong?

[RJ]

Hm. SP4 and enabling the registry key are the only things necessary.
So Windows reports only a 127 GB partition in Disk Management ? No unallocated space ?

RJ

[scottrussell]

aha! ok now it shows up that 105gb of it is unallocated...i guess i didn't see that the first time. but now the question is..what do i do to format/allocate/partition that space so i can use it?

[RJ]

Rightclick on it, select "Create new partition" (or similar), and follow the instructions on the screen, then a new partition will be created inside that unallocated space.

RJ

[scottrussell]

now i have the option to partition it...can i just lump it onto my C: and just get a 250gb C:? if not there are a few options in the partitioning program that i don't quite understand..the only one i can figure out is to partition it as drive E:, that would be kind of a pain but if its my only choice then i'll do it.

[Panama Red]

You can change the drive labels (all but the C) after you have it partitioned and formatted. That way if you want the hdd partitions to run in sequence, C:/D:/E:, etc and the opticals to be F: and G:, you can do that.

[RJ]

now i have the option to partition it...can i just lump it onto my C: and just get a 250gb C:?

Nope. Windows' Disk Management can't resize, merge or split partitions. For that, you need a 3rd party program like partition magic.

not there are a few options in the partitioning program that i don't quite understand..the only one i can figure out is to partition it as drive E:, that would be kind of a pain but if its my only choice then i'll do it.

Your options are:
1) Create a new partition there, it'll be E: or any other available letter
2) Create a new partition there, and use a program like Partition Magic to merge it with C:. The result will be a big C: that fills out the entire 232 GB of the hard drive.
3) Integrate SP4 into the Win2K CD (probably have to chance the registry key as well), wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows. During install create the big 232 GB partition.

RJ

[scottrussell]

ok so now i've got a new problem:

i went to attach my two old hard drives to be in addition to my new sata drive. the two older ones are IDE. i just plugged them back in on one IDE channel and when i boot up my computer tells me it coudlnt find the OS...so my computer is thinking my IDE drive is the boot drive. how can i set up my hard drives to make it boot from my sata drive and have my two IDEs be slaves?

[Cricket]

Go into BIOS and change the first boot device from IDE to SATA. If there isn't anything about SATA, try making SCSI the first boot device.

:) Cricket

[RJ]

how can i set up my hard drives to make it boot from my sata drive and have my two IDEs be slaves?

You can't make both IDE drives slave and have them on one IDE channel. One of them has to be the master, and the other one the slave. 2x slave on one IDE channel won't work, there has to be a master.

RJ

[glc]

Partition Magic will not work on Win2K "Server", only Professional. Server operating systems require very expensive software to accomplish this task. You also will not find a free or inexpensive antivirus that will run on Server. Start over with a slipstreamed CD or deal with 2 partitions - or use Win2K Pro.