Hi I'm just doing a complete reformat of our Win XP Medion computer so as to use it for Music recording. All was fine until I installed a new Primary HDD from another machine, 8GB in size. The idea was that, as is recommended for audio applications, I would use this as the main drive for the system, and have the other, larger drive, dedicated solely to audio recording. However, something I did with the 8GB drive when formatting has confused the hell out of the computer, and now it it convinced that this drive is only 2GB in size. I have tried reformatting, and deleting partitions (and then recreating them) in FDISK, but nothing seems to change it. Any suggestions, in simple English for someone not altogether experienced in this area, would be most welcome. Thanks Jeremy

How to Use the Fdisk Tool and the Format Tool to Partition or Repartition a Hard Disk ------------------- Simplified version of the above Fdisk article: How to Format: Use a 95 or 98 start up disk Boot to A: Fdisk Delete Partition or logical drive Delete primary DOS partition if fat16 or fat32 Delete Non DOS if NTFS Next Create DOS partition Create primary DOS partition Do you wish to use max size?_______Y Reboot to A: format C: You have FAT32 If you want NTFS you can convert later. How to Use Convert.exe to Convert a Partition to the NTFS File System Overview of FAT, HPFS, and NTFS File Systems

Unless you "ENABLE LARGE DISK SUPPORT" when booting up with the 98/me startdisk you will only be able to format in FAT16 which has a 2gb limit on partition size. You will want either fat32 or NTFS if installing XP Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and his wife will never forgive you.

Jeremy, Quick and easy check: fdisk /status And no, you can't do it from XP. It will show you total disk capacity, as reported by BIOS, and partions existing on the drive. If the BIOS has told fdisk that the drive is 2GB, THAT'S your problem. If the BIOS reports 8GB and the primary partition is 2GB, I guess you either fdisked with DOS 5, 6 or early 95; not likely. Or you fdisked with 98/ME and said "N" to large drive support. Let us know what you find. M2

Hi all Many thanks for your speedy responses. I've gone back and had a look. I think it is almost certain that I accidentally chose the FAT16 file system. I did the fdisk using a Win98 startup disk, but I think chose NO for the large disk support. Mechanix2Go - I don't know if this is possible, but having done the above, I think now the BIOS has been "persuaded" by fdisk that the drive is 2Gb in size. Did what you suggested (fdisk /status) and it reported the drive to be 2012 Mb. I have just tried what Chuck 2 said, and have tried to enable large disk support, but it still tells me the size is 2Gb. How can I change the BIOS's mind?! (If that is the problem). Many thanks again for all your help. Jeremy

Hi Jeremy, Do this: fdisk /status and report EXACTLY what it says. M2

Hi M2, I had the same problem only with 120GB disk.Mine disk had 3 partitions and was fine. But now it shows only 1st one (30GB) with fdisk and it was not readable.So I format it. But when I tried to re-do the others 2 I noticed that in BIOS my disk was only 30GB??? The same problem as Jeremy. I tried also with Partition magic, but nothing.I can see only 30GB and it shows as the all disk is this size.Also it gives "error 108" BAD something with disk geometry I think. Can you please help me, anyone! Many thanks, Miksa Viksa