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Hard Drive Question
I've got a Maxtor 6L160P0 which is a 160GB 7200RPM drive
It's actually someone else who installed it in the computer so I don't know if they did something wrong or what not at the time but there's something I don't quite understand.
It's supposed to be a 160GB drive but it's only 128GB total ( it's split in two partitions one 63.5 one 64.5 )
Where'd the 32 GB missing go?
I understand there's often less on the drives then the actual advertised indication but still that's a lot "missing" !?
What's wrong? 
I'm basically burning everything that's on the drive and I'm about to reformat to install in another computer and do a clean install. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Use Norton Partition Magic!
Depending on your MOBO BIOS, OS you're running, etc - it could be either not recognizing the size over certain limit or your drive geometry is not properly set up. Usually, these disks come with a utility you can run that will allow you to take advantage of all the space on your HD. Sounds to me like you're running an older version of Windows (98/ME). Time for upgrade.
Run (or install if you havent done so already) Partition Magic and check out all of the partitions.
If theres nothing there, im afraid you dont have a 160gb hard drive...possibly 140?
| quote: |
| Originally posted by emc^2 Depending on your MOBO BIOS, OS you're running, etc - it could be either not recognizing the size over certain limit or your drive geometry is not properly set up. Usually, these disks come with a utility you can run that will allow you to take advantage of all the space on your HD. Sounds to me like you're running an older version of Windows (98/ME). Time for upgrade. |
I'm using Paragon Partition manager
and that's the info I get:
Model: Maxtor 6L160P0
Cylinders: 0x00004145 16709
Heads: 0x000000FF 255
Sectors / Track: 0x0000003F 63
Physical Sectors: 0x0FFFFFFF 268435455
Total Sectors: 0x0FFFEB05 268430085
That model is a 160GB there is no doubt about that.
There is a Maxblast4 utility that exists for non SP updated XP versions. I have tried to run the utility from Maxtor and cannot because everything is "ok"(have most recent SPs etc ).
Partitions are in NTFS.
I've noticed that the drive size is often smaller than they advertise. for example i bought 120gig and I only have only 112gig so where did the other 8 gig go who knows?
Nah it has to do with the way HD makers advertise the space on their drives (to make emm sem bigger).
>LINKY - When is a a Gb not a GB<
| quote: |
| Originally posted by emc^2 Depending on your MOBO BIOS, OS you're running, etc - it could be either not recognizing the size over certain limit or your drive geometry is not properly set up. Usually, these disks come with a utility you can run that will allow you to take advantage of all the space on your HD. Sounds to me like you're running an older version of Windows (98/ME). Time for upgrade. |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by Dervish Nah it has to do with the way HD makers advertise the space on their drives (to make emm sem bigger). >LINKY - When is a a Gb not a GB< |
| quote: |
| Originally posted by _Nut_ That is the likely cause. I think even XP (earlier versions) only see 132 gigs without the correct drivers loaded to the OS. Is this the main drive where the OS is loaded? |
yo bro mets a jour le bios (update your mobo's bios), it already happened to me before
i dont understand the concept of partitioning a hard drive, whats the point?
if you are skilled enough to organize partitions by drive letters you are skilled enough to organize folders to represent partitions to keep your file allocation clean and concise.
and at the cost of HDs these days, it's quite simple to run an OS Hard drive (skratch disk), completely stand alone from a data hard drive. It's highly recommended, you wouldn't need anything larger than a 40GB disk to run your OS off of.
In jdat's case, you can be facing either of the problems, 1-update your BIOS as it's a known problem with some mobo's not recognizing over 100GB drives, could be the reason why he partitioned the drive into 2 small chunks. 2-the installer missed 30gb's during his partition.
The best way to format/partition/whatever you want to do with a drive is to do it through DOS. FDISK will show you your partitions as well as enable you to delete your partitions and create them. Make sure you know what you are doing here, potential to screw things up. Like all things, back every "DATA" piece up. OS and applications can always be reinstalled. Drivers for the basics should be included with your copy of XP. That goes for CD-Rom drivers and network capabilities. I suggest backing up all data, FDISK the drive, reformat the partition and keep it as 1 partition.
I guess I'll just continue burning everything. It goes so much faster with my new dvd burner wtd!
And in regards to partitioning. I have no clue why I and tons of people do it. I guess that's just a bad habit that started with hard drives started getting real big.
You might need to check for a bios update for your motherboard, Usually the updated bios would fix the harddrive problems when they are bigger then 137MB, Be sure your WinXP is updated to Service Pack 2 as well. But in the event that the Motherboard's Manufacturer doesn't have an updated version of the bios, Your 2nd option would be to purchase an Ultra ATA Controller Card, They were built to support big Hard Drives when an older system doesn't detect them properly. Once you have that in place, You should be able repartition the drive to use the full 160GB partition, However, Due to the File System on the Hard Drives, It's gonna be somewhere around 150 something GB and not exactly 160GB cause the File System itself takes up most of the HD space..
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