Is the hard drive showing at its proper size in your BIOS?
When you run FDISK did you say "Y" when it asked if you needed large disk support?
If you are running windows XP you could also just trying partitioning the drive within windows (I assume this is a 2nd drive in addition to whatever drive you have windows on)
To do that go to START->Control Panel->Admin Tools (may need to have it set to classic view to see admin tools)
Double click "Computer management" and click on "Disk management"
It will then display your hard drives installed. NOTE: Be sure you select the proper drive and do not delete patitions you want to keep! Right click on the area of your maxtor that you want to use, delete that 7.8 GB partition you made and then right click it again to create a partition, then right click it again to format.