Hard disk size limitations in Win XP Home Edition

[newWhiz]

Hi,

I bought a new Seagate 160 GB hard disk and installed it on my Dell Dimension 4400 desktop. My PC is showing the size of the disk as 149 GB instead of 160 GB. I have applied the latest Win XP SP2 and also applied latest BIOS update. I used the Seagate's Disc Wizard (that came with the disk) and formatted the new disk but when I try to access it thru Explorer I get an error message that the disk needs to be formatted. And When I try to format it using the Windows disk format utility, it's showing up the new disk size as 149 GB and taking forever to format it.

Would anyone suggest me how I can format or fix this problem so that I can get 160 GB out of it?
Any help is really appreciated.

[EzyStvy]

What you are seeing is "normal."

Windows counts a gig to be one million bytes. The drive makers count a gig to be a slightly larger number....Nothing you can do about it...

[RJ]

Windows counts a gig to be one million bytes.

No. That is wrong and exactly how the hard drive manufacturers calculate.
They say 1 GB = 1.000.000.000 Bytes. But a real GB is 1.073.741.824 Bytes (and that's what Windows uses, too), abd it's more than 1.000.000.000 Bytes.

Therefore the false 160 GB are 149 GB. (Just divide 160.000.000.000 three times by 1024).

This difference in size has become noticeable to many people recently. I wonder when the hard drive manufacturers finally stop that nonsense and write true GB, or at least BB for billion bytes instead of GB

RJ

[EzyStvy]

Well, I was close Coffee has kicked in yet...

"Determining drive capacity can be confusing at times because of the different measurement standards that are often used. When dealing with Windows and Mac based systems, you will commonly see both decimal measurements and binary measurements of a drive's capacity. In either case, a drive's capacity is measured by using the total number of bytes available on the drive. As long as the drive displays the correct number of bytes (approximate), you are getting the drive's full capacity.

Decimal vs. Binary:
For simplicity and consistency, hard drive manufacturers define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes. This is a decimal (base 10) measurement and is the industry standard. However, certain system BIOSs, FDISK and Windows define a megabyte as 1,048,576 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes. Mac systems also use these values. These are binary (base 2) measurements.

To Determine Decimal Capacity:
A decimal capacity is determined by dividing the total number of bytes, by the number of bytes per gigabyte (1,000,000,000 using base 10).

To Determine Binary Capacity:
A binary capacity is determined by dividing the total number of bytes, by the number of bytes per gigabyte (1,073,741,824 using base 2).
This is why different utilities will report different capacities for the same drive. The number of bytes is the same, but a different number of bytes is used to make a megabyte and a gigabyte. This is similar to the difference between 0 degrees Celsius and 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It is the same temperature, but will be reported differently depending on the scale you are using."

continued

[newWhiz]

Seagate didn't mention this anywhere on the box or in the document that came with the hard disk what they mean by 160 GB is infact 149 GB in reality (by the latest standards). That's very lame....also misleading the consumers!!

In any case I really appreciate all your input and settled with the fact that I bought 149 GB hard disk. Now, I have a problem formatting the disk in Windows XP. I am using my new disk as an additional storage (that's as D: or E: ) so I tried formatting disk using DOS command "Format D: /FS:FAT32" and failed, then I tried "Format D: /FS:NTFS", which also failed to format the 149 GB disk. Following is the error message I got when I tried both options:

C:\>format D: /FS:FAT32
The type of the file system is RAW.
The new file system is FAT32.

WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK
DRIVE D: WILL BE LOST!
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? y
Verifying 152625M
The volume is too big for FAT32.

C:\>format D: /FS:NTFS
The type of the file system is RAW.
The new file system is NTFS.

WARNING, ALL DATA ON NON-REMOVABLE DISK
DRIVE D: WILL BE LOST!
Proceed with Format (Y/N)? y
Verifying 152625M
Volume label (ENTER for none)? New
Creating file system structures.
The second NTFS boot sector is unwriteable.
The first NTFS boot sector is unwriteable.
All NTFS boot sectors are unwriteable. Cannot continue.
Format failed.

Help please!

[RJ]

Hi,

rightclick on "My Computer", select "Manage", click on "Disk Management", and on the right side you can see your drives. Create the partitions you like, and format them there.

Don't use DOS commands in Windows XP. .you're using Windows, not DOS

RJ

[newWhiz]

Hi RJ,

I already tried that option too!
I formatted the disk thru Windows Disk Management UI. It formatted it as 149 GB and displayed the disk status as Healthy. But when I tried to access the drive (in my case the new drive is D: ) , I get a message box "Disk in drive D is not formatted. Do you want me to format it now?".

I think I need to tweak with my Win XP to recognize a 149 (160) GB hard disk. But I don't know what it is exactly. I read somewhere that in Win XP I need to reboot the machine with the boot floppy (that has format commands) and then format the disk (that's larger than 32 GB) during system boot up. I may be wrong. But I think it's Windows XP (Home Edition) that causing the problem.
Any clues?

Thanks

[Mesaeus]

Do you have SP1 or SP2 installed ? (SP = Service Pack). You definitely need SP1 to get partitions larger than 128 Gig working...

[TennBikeBerk]

Originally Posted by newWhiz I have applied the latest Win XP SP2 and also applied latest BIOS update.

Looks like he does indeed have SP2 up and running.

[newWhiz]

Yes, I did install Win XP SP 2 before I started working my new hard disk. Any idea what registry/software tweaks in need to do to my Win XP Home Edition?

[Mesaeus]

Well, time and time again I see people who have problems with their hard disk when using the supplied manufacturer program to partition/format the hard disk (Maxtor usually). So I'd try to delete any partitions on that drive in the Disk Manager and recreate them using Disk Manager. If this fails, you might have to download SeaTools from Seagate's website, and zerofill the hard disk so you can start over. This is not guaranteed to solve your problem, but I'm mighty suspicious about the quality of those "Disk Wizards", it seems they're nothing but trouble.

[newWhiz]

Looks like people gave up on this one...

I tried all available options to format and use my new Seagate 149 (160) GB hard disk (using it as an additional storage. my OS is on C: ):
1) Applied Windows XP SP2
2) Searched Dell site and got the latest BIOS (A06) update for my Dimension 4400 and applied it.
3) Used Seagate DiscWizard to format the new disk. The Wizard said it formatted the disk but I still couldn't access it. But my PC (OS) recognizes that there is a new disk.
4) Tried to format thru DOS and failed (check my previous psot above for error messages).
5) Tried to format it thru Windows Explorer, it took an hour or so and at the end it popped up a message box that "Windows was unable to format the disk". (Great!!!)
6) Used SeaTool Diagnostics tool; didn't find any problems with the disk - all results were fine.
7) BigLBA is enabled - registry key value for "EnableBigLba" is 1.

After trying all these options, I still can't format and use my new hard disk. And I cannot think of any more options.

Don't give up on me....any clues??

[Confused]

Originally Posted by newWhiz Seagate didn't mention this anywhere on the box or in the document that came with the hard disk what they mean by 160 GB is infact 149 GB in reality (by the latest standards). That's very lame....also misleading the consumers!!

It's not just Seagate. They all do it.
Chas

[glc]

Make sure you do not have a bios antivirus enabled. This will prevent writing to the boot sector.

Partitioning and formatting should be done through Disk Management, nowhere else. Not Explorer, not a floppy, not with 3rd party utilities.

[newWhiz]

I turned off the Anti-Virus and formatted using (Windows) Disk Management...still no luck !!

After an hour or so, I got the error message that the format didn't complete successfully

[glc]

I'd contact Seagate (and maybe Dell and/or Microsoft) support.

[GaryRouth]

[. . . something you can try while waiting to hear from Seagate, Dell, & Microsoft... It sounds like you haven't tried a zero-write yet (mentioned by Mesaeus). Try it: it should restore the drive to the condition it was in when you brought it home from the store [completely blank]. Then with the Bios Anti-Virus off (like glc suggested) and with the Bios IDE controller settings set to "Auto", try Disk Management again. [I'm guessing your Seagate is the 160gb parallel-ATA (UltraATA-100) that's been on sale in many areas, rather than a SATA drive]
. . . Gary

[newWhiz]

Guys,

I found the problem and could format the disk up to 128 GB. Now, the new problem is my IDE control/cord does NOT support disks larger than 128 or 129 GB. One of my IT guys at the office said, I need a new IDE control that supports 133 Mhz. Is it the cable/cord that I got with new hard disk that connects the disk to motherboard? Because I am not using the new one that came with the disk but still using the old one that came with the PC (2 years old). Should I use the new cable/cord? Or the IDE control is something different that I should buy from the store??
Thanks a lot for all your input

[RJ]

What controllercard do you have ? You should be able to breach the 137 GB barrier (actually that's again 137 BB, and 128 GB) by updating the BIOS of that controller card. If you plugged the drive into the onboard controller, then you need to flash the BIOS.
Most mainboard and controller card manufacturer offer a new BIOS to fix that issue.

The cable itself has nothing to do with it. For transfer rates higher than 33 MB/s you should use the 80 conductor cable. But that's only for the speed, it doesn't involve in the hard drive size. That's a controller issue.

RJ

[GaryRouth]

Since you are using the IDE controller on the mainboard, when you applied the latest Dell bios, it should have helped you overcome any controller-based issues, if Dell has been keeping your model up-to-date. If you can call Dell at no charge, or e-mail them, inquire if their onboard controller would present a problem with a 160gb drive. If the web-page with the bios-flash had a "details" section, take another look there & see what issues that flash fixed [you can also look back a few releases to see previous issues that have been updated - they are usually included in all versions afterwards as well]

This all mostly repeats much of what RJ already said - I just added the phone call.

[and also like RJ mentioned, I'd guess your current cable is already an 80 wire & should be just fine - unless mice have been chewing on it!]