Large Hard Drive and W7

[sloan448]

I'm sure this has been asked a few times. My XP won't recognize larger than 137 gb, does Windows 7 have this problem. I just got a 1.5 tb drive and XP isn't seeing all of it even after I installed SP2. I am thinking of getting W7, I have a AMD 64 dual core motherboard.

[patio]

No it doesn't...
And the reason XP does not see it all even after SP2 is probably because the drive was not setup properly when XP was originally installed...
However if you are wiping XP this is no longer an issue.
Early on in the Win setup process you will be given an option to delete the existing partition...do so...
NOTE ALL your data from the XP install will be gone so backup what you need 1st.
Then simply choose the new partition size...it can be the entire drive if you like and then continue with the install...

[Geek-9pm]

He needs to see if this was a BIOS problem. After SP2 the problem was fixed. Or so they say. This is an old issues. Here is an explanation of the problem.
http://www.48bitlba.com/
On the right -pane see Quick Facts 48-bit LBA requirements checklist.

[patio]

Well we don't know what machine this is so your point may be valid...
However i doubt it if the MBoard supports a dual-core AMD CPU...

[sloan448]

The motherboard is a Mach Speed MSNV-939, RVN.009, 2006.

[patio]

Then you can safely ignore Geeks' advice...

[sloan448]

I took the plunge this morning and bought W7 Home Premium Upgrade. The install went just fine. I now have the total 1.5 TB space (I left the XP partition on the drive for the *censored* of it.) I now can use all that power from my AMD 64 Athlon.
I talked to the techs at Best Buy and they told me about this software.... http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/products/diskdirector/. They said I had a version of XP too old (bought it about a month after it came out in 02) to be able for even SP2 to show the large hard drive. I had a choice between this and an upgrade. Because of the motherboard I went with the upgrade.

[sloan448]

I meant Acronis Disk Director Suite 10, not server.

[patio]

Acronis is probably the best Disk Imaging app out there...on top of the other things it does...
Worth the money to me...been using it for 5 Years or so...

[Computer_Commando]

...I talked to the techs at Best Buy and they told me about this software.... They said I had a version of XP too old (bought it about a month after it came out in 02) to be able for even SP2 to show the large hard drive. I had a choice between this and an upgrade. Because of the motherboard I went with the upgrade.

Gimme a Break! WinXP, Vista, Win7 all support NTFS volumes of 2TB.

[jkolak]

Maybe they meant too old for SATA support.

I had this issue on my equally ancient original XP CD.

I had to slipstream SP3 into it to get my hard drive to be properly recognized.

[Geek-9pm]

Hello again everybody.
In the original post he said quite clearly that his XP OS does not read above 137 GB. That is bad news.
This is a warning! Any operating system that cannot access over 137 GB is a potential hazard for any IDE drive that goes beyond that limit. This is not a joke, this is not a wild guess, this is proven fact. In the old version of Windows XP there is a driver that is defective in the sense that it was not designed for the 48 bit lba definition for IDE. This has nothing to do with SATA drives.
If you need the details I can rant on on about what happens. But this is thoroughly documented elsewhere, so you don't have to take my word for it.

[jkolak]

Now that you mention it, I remember getting the IDEfix patch with my XP CD back in the day...

[BC_Programmer]

the "137GB limit" was present with the RTM release of windows XP. 48-bit addressing was added to SP1a (or more precisely, it was fixed in SP1a).

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303013

The conclusion here is that the version of XP the OP Is using is the RTM release of Windows XP. therefore the simple answer is to simply install a Service pack. (preferably either SP2 or SP3).

Maybe they meant too old for SATA support.

Your giving them far too much credit.

if that's what they meant, it what they should have said. The problem is a lot of people think that these employees are "dumbing it down" for the consumer but the fact is that a large percentage of them simply have no idea what they are talking about the begin with, and the "dumbing down" needs to be done for them.

[jkolak]

The problem is a lot of people think that these employees are "dumbing it down" for the consumer but the fact is that a large percentage of them simply have no idea what they are talking about the begin with, and the "dumbing down" needs to be done for them.

Oh yes! I hate it when I'm on the phone with someone who knows less than me, and they act like they know more! (Especially if it is for evaluating a defective exchange and they won't believe you!)