I recently had my first physical hard drive crash. I ordered a new WD 160 gig hdd from newegg. It didn't come in a box, so no installation cd came with it. Anyhow I formatted it and installed my os. I was trying to partition it using PM 7.0 only to discover that only 127 gigs shows up. I downloaded and installed WD utilities disk which allowed me to install the necessary Atapi entry into the registry enabling 48 bit LBA. Problem is I understand from the Wd disk that you have to use their dos utility disk to specify that the new hdd is over 132 gigs BEFORE you format. Since I just spent hours installing etc., does anyone know a way to get windows to recognize the correct size of the disk without having to reformat all over again. I have the latest bios installed and also have SP2 installed. If ya need anymore info, just ask. TIA... Keep Smiling It makes them think you're up to something...

Yes you create a "XP CD including SP3", and use the tools offered during install to partition. No M$-DOS, out of date PM etcetcetc, no LBA48 messing about. nLite will Slipstream SP3 into XP and create a bootable CD: http://www.nliteos.com

Thank You itguru. I'll check it out. Keep Smiling It makes them think you're up to something...

Slipstreaming SP3 MAY solve the problem the next time, but not now. The first thing you MUST do is verify your BIOS is 48 bit LBA compliant. That is a simple thing to do now that the 160GB drive is already installed. Watch the start up screens to see if the BIOS properly identifies the drive by both model AND capacity. If only 127GB is identified by the BIOS your BIOS is NOT 48 bit LBA compliant. Using the drive under those conditions will cause eventual data loss and/or corruption. The simple fix is to install a hard drive controller card and connect the drive to that card. If the BIOS does see the FULL 160GB then you must not have any service packs on your installation CD. Now the solution would be to first install a service pack. Then go into Disk Management and find the unallocated portion of the drive there. Format it and assign a drive letter and it will be usable. If your BIOS is not 48 bit LBA compliant WinXP with any service pack installed will still see the remaining space. However, using it, or even the first 127GB will result in data corruption. Post back with what you found in the start up screens. For additional information on this topic look at the link below. http://www.48bitlba.com/index.htm

OK OtheHill, I'm gonna try to read the screen but I'm no speedreader. I'll use your advice and post back. Thanx for the reply. Keep Smiling It makes them think you're up to something...

OtheHill, Thanx for the tip about unallocated space. The BIOS recognized the drive ok. I used partition magic to change the disk size by using the unallocated space and now it's fine. It now shows the drive is about 150 gigs. Your help is always appreciated here on CN. Keep up the good work. Maybe you can come up with a better solution for the big bailout :))) Keep Smiling It makes them think you're up to something...