Help me, X! Installed a new hard drive...computer says it's installed BUT...

[Rogue588]

I have two hard drives installed already. I wanted to add a third. Since my Dell motherboard only had one slot, I had to buy an IDE card.

Finally got it today. I installed the card and connected the previous [non-system] hard drive to it [it'll be storage] and then I connected the new hard drive where the old was used to be.

Turned on the computer.

System boots up.

Windows XP recognizes the old HD, the IDE card & the new HD.

However, when I use windows explorer to see what drives are installed, the old HD [on the new IDE card] is there, but the new HD isn't.

I clicked the Device Manager and the new HD shows up there too. I went to Computer Management to format the disc and partition it, but when I click on Disk Management, it lists the disc [on the left hand side] as "Disk 1 - Dynamic - 128G [should be 200G] - Online" and the right side says "128G - Unallocated".

When I right click the left side, it give me the options of "New Volume...", "Convert To Basic Disc", "Properties" and "Help". When I right click the right side, it says "New Volume...", "Properties" and "Help".

Clicking on "Help" really didn't...so I figured I would ask the All-Knowing X for help [and 'cuz you've bailed me out with my asinine questions on more than one occasion..]

Thanks!

[X]

Convert it to Basic Disc, Partition it (you probably want to use the full capacity as one drive), and Format it.

The 128GB is strange. Your motherboard can handle large hard drives, can't it? If not you may need to put it on the new IDE controller board.

[Numanoid]

Originally posted by X
The 128GB is strange. Your motherboard can handle large hard drives, can't it? If not you may need to put it on the new IDE controller board.

Your new HD should have come with some driver/utility disks. One of these will install the necessary drivers for your OS to recognize the full size of the drive. Usually you have to boot from the floppy disk and run the utility to completely install the controller card and the hard drive. Check the instructions that came with the HD.

[JM]

Originally posted by Numanoid
Your new HD should have come with some driver/utility disks. One of these will install the necessary drivers for your OS to recognize the full size of the drive. Usually you have to boot from the floppy disk and run the utility to completely install the controller card and the hard drive. Check the instructions that came with the HD.

I'd recommend this as a last resort only. These utilitites will install a DDO (dynamic disk overlay) to fake 48-bit LBA, which can cause problems down the road if you move the drive to a controller that has real 48-bit LBA support.

If you have not already upgraded XP to SP1, you should do that first. SP1 adds support for software 48-bit LBA. Hopefully, that will get you going. If not, I would do as X suggests and put the new drive on the new controller.

[X]

Your controller could need a driver, but if it's recognized already it should be fine. It will be handling the large drive, by the time the data gets from the controller to the PCI bus it should be able to be handled by the OS. However, your computer should support large drives anyway.

If you have XP you'll need to have installed SP1 to recognize large hard drives. In Windows 2000 you need at least SP3.

You should not have to load a driver (beyond the driver needed just to support the card if the OS doesn't already do it) from a disk that came with your drive to overcome the size limitation.

[Edit: I got interrupted in my reply, JM said what I was going to.]

[Rogue588]

thanks guys!

it's formatted and partitioned, but i'm going to have to look into the SP1 since it's still missing the last 72G.

thanks again.

[oh, and X, thanks to THIS thread, i'm thinking about attempting to build my own computer [depending on the influx of $$$]. So, you might want to go on vacation that month...]

[X]

Originally posted by Rogue588
thanks guys!

it's formatted and partitioned, but i'm going to have to look into the SP1 since it's still missing the last 72G.

You'll need to repartition and format after you do that.

Personally, I'd stick the new drive on the IDE controller. Things were working fine the way they were, weren't they? The new controller is as fast as the system's controller too.

[Rogue588]

They were working fine.

I was just concerned that data would take longer to transfer.

And since, for the most part, i'm technologically retarded when it comes to hard facts until a situation arises where i'm forced to learn [such as this], I just assumed the data would take longer to transfer since it would be connected to an "add-on" device. [Don't ask me how I came up with that...I know it makes no sense.]

If I put the new HD on the card, would I still need to mess around with the SP1?

[Rogue588]

Oh hey, if it matters...THIS is the card I bought.

[X]

Originally posted by Rogue588
If I put the new HD on the card, would I still need to mess around with the SP1?

Yes, and you should anyway. There are security patches in there as well.

I've tested a Promise card on three systems and found it to be the same speed (or faster in the case of a server that minimally supported IDE). Perhaps if you had great transfers of other data such as video going through the PCI bus at the same time and not going to the hard drive it could be slower.

[Rogue588]

Well, your recommendation was the sole reason I bought it.

Thanks again!

[TheSilverSurfer]

Lets not forget Rogue that you're not going to get 72gb back even on a 200 GB HD.

I forgot the math formula crap but every hard drive is recognized smaller than it's actual advertised amount due to....ahh crap i can't rember...anyone anyone?...Bueller?

It's the way windows reads the file system or something, i forgot it but i know it's true.

For example my 40gb's are recognized as 36gb's, a 20 might be 18gb a 150gb might be recognized as 128gb but 128 does seem a little low for a 200gb. I'd suspect it would be recognized as 180gb or so.

Theres a formula somewhere...i'll see if i can find it.

[twikoff]

yea.. its along the lines of 1100 mb actually equals 1gb

didnt seem like a big deal a long time ago

but when your talking about 30, 50, 100, 200 gbs
they like to advertise 200,000mb as 200gb.. when we all know that it doesnt work that way

and of course the higher you go, the larger the difference

of course.. as its been pointed out before.. you never actually see all the space on a drive either.. because as bad sectors and crap are found on your drive, its smart enough to replace those with some of these hidden sectors to keep your drive working.. and will continue to do that until all the hidden sectors are used up..

[X]

A 200GB drive formatted NTFS with the default sector size will show up as 186GB.