250GB IDE HDD shows up as 37.5GB

[gibbst]

Hi all.

I recently bought a 250GB IDE HDD to supplement my original 37GB system drive.

I've installed the new drive as a slave to the old one, and both disks are recognised in drive management. I can store files on the disk no problem.

However the maximum recognised capacity of the new drive is 37.5Gb, the same as the old drive.

I'm really not sure why this is.

I'm on Win XP Sp2, a Gigabyte MBoard. I updated BIOS to no avail. I've read the sticky's about common problems, but none seem to fit my problem.

It's just weird that the drive is limited to my original drive's capacity.

Any general observations?

[shadowpr]

In disk management, what do you see for the new hard drive?

Does it show the full 250 but split up, or just 37?

[glc]

What is the exact model of the hard drive, and exactly how is it jumpered? How is the master drive jumpered? What type of IDE cable are you using, and exactly how is it connected? What is the exact model of the motherboard?

[gibbst]

Shadowpr:
It shows 37.5 GB as the full size. In My Computer it is also the same.


GC:
Both drives are on the same Bus. Is the rest of those details really going to help?
I'm after a conceptual solution...

[sgtspector]

Older motherboards may not be capable of recognizing a hdd over that size. Keep in mind that the members here are not sitting in front of your pc and therefore need to be sure what they are dealing with. To paraphrase Jerry McGuire " Help us help you".

[Panama Red]

I suspect glc is asking for the exact jumpering in order to determine if you have mistakenly put the jumper in size limiting position thinking it is jumpered as Master. It's a common mistake.

[glc]

If I can't sit in front of your computer, I can't troubleshoot it without asking you specific questions and getting them answered.

You would be surprised how many people misconfigure multiple hard drives, even so-called "professional" technicians and builders. I used to screw them up myself till I learned the proper ways to do things and I've been in this business for 15 years.

Okay, you want "concept"? No problem. You should be using an 80 wire Ultra ATA drive cable. The black end needs to be connected to the master drive, the gray middle connector to the slave drive. The other colored end (usually blue) goes to the motherboard. Both drives need to be jumpered to CS (Cable Select). It is VERY easy to read the jumper chart wrong, as I remember, it's Seagate (or maybe Maxtor) drives where it's not totally intuitive and the chart can be read upside down. When you do this, the jumper may be in the Cylinder Limit position instead of (I think) slave.

The ONLY reason drives still have master/slave jumpers is for backwards compatibility with old 40 wire cables.

Without knowing the motherboard model, I can't tell if it has a 128gb bios size limitation. If it does, a 250gb drive will not be seen correctly.