hard drive size problem

[Bryna]

I need some help. Have just built a new computer. The hadr drive is a western digital 20.2GB. But the BIOS and windows both say the size of the drive is one 2.1GB. We have tried reformatting, that hasn't helped. Any ideas?

[mike breck]

Hi Bryna,

If this ia new HD and mobo, then it looks as though you didn't say "Yes"
to enabling large disk support in FDISK.

Run FDISK again and when you see the question "Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)" select "Yes". This will enab Fat32 and allow the whole drive to be seen.

You must then delete your existing partitions.

If you have only one partition choose "Delete Primary DOS partition"

If you more than one do it in this order:
Non-DOS drive(s)
Logical Drive(s)
Extended DOS partition(s)
Primary Dos partition

Then you can start again and create your Primary DOS Partition. You can either make the drive one large Primary Dos Partition or if you want more partitions, you will have to create an Extended DOS partition containing the Logical drives.

Then Format partition or partitions as normal.

If you need any help with this let us know.

[HAL9000]

If the BIOS is only seeing the drive as 2.1Gb, then you have a BIOS limitation for a hard drive. Your possible solutions are;

1) Check for a BIOS flash upgrade for your motherboard to support larger drives.

2) Run a drive overlay such as Ontrack or EZ-Drive

3) Purchase a drive controller card such as the Promise Ultra66/100/133 cards.

The first choice would be the cheapest and the best choice. Secondly, I would opt for the Promise controller card. It may be the most expensive solution, but it will recognize drives up to 128Gb and maximize performance of your drive as your motherboard most likely only supports up to Ultra33. As a last choice, use the drive overlay. This will work, but must load into memory before the OS. This gives you a larger resource overhead and will actually slow down your drive.

The only part the confuses me in this matter is that you say you built a "new" computer. Is it new or used parts as new motherboards shouldn't have a BIOS limitation anywhere that low and will support the higher transfer speeds.

What brand/model motherboard is it?