40 gig HD only shows 31.??? gigs.

[JEFFRO]

i have wiped my drive as spottless as possible and then re-setup with the same HD settings.
any help hort of requiring a 5lb hammer most -a- welcomed grasshopper:) <a href="mailto:joker5333@aol.com" target="_blank">joker5333@aol.com</a>

[Platypus]

Did you install the drive originally yourself, or was it shop-installed. Some systems have a BIOS that doesn't recognise more than 32G size, your system may be such, and the original installation probably used a DDO (Dynamic Drive Overlay) to enable recognition of the full capacity of the 40G drive. If so it will have been lost when you wiped the drive.

In this case, you could probably obtain DDO software for your drive from the manufacturers website. A better solution overall would be a BIOS update, if one is available for your m/board.

If you would like more info, please give as much detail of your system, Operating System, brand of parts ie HDD and m/board as you can find out, & we'll try to advise.

Alternatively, if the BIOS is recognising the drive correctly, but you are installing WinXP, it will only set up a maximum 32G partition if you are using FAT32. In this case, if you want to have a single 40G partition, you must partition and format the drive first from a WIN98 startup floppy disk.

[weazel]

make sure its not jumpered for only 32 gigs also

[Draggar]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Weazel:
<strong>make sure its not jumpered for only 32 gigs also</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Hmm, interesting...

I have the same problem, only seeing 32GB on the 40GB hdd. Abit and WD both would not claim its their hardware, and I have to run the EZ-BIOS.

I never saw anythting about 32GB jumpers..

I have a WD 40GB HDD (Caviar, I think) and an ABit BX2 Rev2.0 Mobo...

[Platypus]

I discounted the possibility of a jumper since Jeffro presumably had the full 40G originally, however it's as well to mention it.

For WD drives, this may be useful:

<a href="http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp" target="_blank">http://support.wdc.com/techinfo/general/jumpers.asp</a>

The 8.4/32G info is just before the SCSI section.

The 32G limiting jumper is most useful if there is no update available for a BIOS that uses the faulty Phoenix Bitshift Algorithm. In this case data written to the drive above the 32G point could wrap around and overwrite the start of the drive.

[Draggar]

When I get some time off, I'll give it a try, thank you!

[complexvariable]

Tell us how it turns out

[Bluff]

i used to have ME and then installed XP and i have a 38g HD..it doesn't force you to have a 32g partition

[Platypus]

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by Bluff:
<strong>i used to have ME and then installed XP and i have a 38g HD..it doesn't force you to have a 32g partition</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">You appear to be referring to my post above.

What you say is correct, but wouldn't be relevant to Jeffro's query if he was installing XP on his now blank drive. If you already have an OS on a FAT32 partition larger than 32G, or just an empty formatted partition, XP will install onto it. However if you try to partition and format larger than 32G during installation of Win2000 or XP, the format will fail. Microsoft wishes NTFS to be used for larger partitions.

As it says here:

<a href="http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314463" target="_blank">http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314463</a>

"You cannot format a volume larger than 32 gigabytes (GB) in size using the FAT32 file system during the Windows XP installation process."

[MaddMaxx]

You can format a drive in FAT32 up to 4 terabytes
for use in Win2k and WinXP by using fdisk. Use the
new fdisk from MS to exceed 60gigs. The limitation
of 32 gigs in FAT32 is true formatting with the
Win2k/XP installation disk.