After asking for advice on this news group about up-dating my computer on a
limited budget (£200) I opted for the one suggested by 'Andy' and wound up
with a Asus K8N motherboard, 512MB of Crucial memory, an AMD Sempron 2800
processor, 160 gigabyte Maxtor hard drive and a 450 watt power supply.

Unfortunately as that was a total sum of my budget gone, for now at least
I'll have to stick with my old Windows 2000 OS.

However after formatting the new drive as NTFS and installing a load of
programs and files from my old drive, I noticed that I appeared to be minus
33 gigabytes of disc space, I subsequently found out that apparently Windows
2000 will only accommodate a maximum of a 127 gigabyte drive.

Whilst I appreciate that I should have partitioned the drive before loading
the operating system, I don't wish to start all over again if I can possibly
avoid it.

Is there any type of programme available that will allow me to recover the
missing 33 gigabytes of disc space from the exsisting OS, without having to
re-format my drive and reload everything all over again, TIA Ivan.

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:09:41 +0100, Ivan
wrote:

After asking for advice on this news group about up-dating my computer on a
limited budget (£200) I opted for the one suggested by 'Andy' and wound up
with a Asus K8N motherboard, 512MB of Crucial memory, an AMD Sempron 2800
processor, 160 gigabyte Maxtor hard drive and a 450 watt power supply.

Unfortunately as that was a total sum of my budget gone, for now at least
I'll have to stick with my old Windows 2000 OS.

I won't go any later than Win2k, XP is far too invasive.

However after formatting the new drive as NTFS and installing a load of
programs and files from my old drive, I noticed that I appeared to be minus
33 gigabytes of disc space, I subsequently found out that apparently Windows
2000 will only accommodate a maximum of a 127 gigabyte drive.

Huh? I'm running Win2000SP4 quite happily with a 160GB drive.
Admittedly it's formatted as FAT32 rather than NTFS, is it NTFS that has
the problem? Or was it just whatever partitioned the drive originally?

NTFS itself is designed to go up to 16EB (16 exabytes, or 16 giga
gigabytes), FAT32 to 2TB (2048 gigabytes), and was explicitly designed
to not have any limit at 127GB.

However, what I suspect you are seeing is the 'overhead' of NTFS
(possibly coupled with your drive actually being 160e9 bytes rather than
160 x 2^20 bytes). NTFS takes up to 18% 'overhead' for its tables,
which on a '160MB' drive could give as low as 123 binary gigabytes of
free space.

Whilst I appreciate that I should have partitioned the drive before loading
the operating system, I don't wish to start all over again if I can possibly
avoid it.

Is there any type of programme available that will allow me to recover the
missing 33 gigabytes of disc space from the exsisting OS, without having to
re-format my drive and reload everything all over again, TIA Ivan.

Partition Magic will repartition happily. If you really do have a small
partition created it can be expanded (PM will also show you the real
disk and filesystem sizes, and the amount of 'wasted' space). It's
another 80 quid or so, but is well worth it...

Chris C

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:09:41 +0100, "Ivan"
wrote:

After asking for advice on this news group about up-dating my computer on a
limited budget (£200) I opted for the one suggested by 'Andy' and wound up
with a Asus K8N motherboard, 512MB of Crucial memory, an AMD Sempron 2800
processor, 160 gigabyte Maxtor hard drive and a 450 watt power supply.

Unfortunately as that was a total sum of my budget gone, for now at least
I'll have to stick with my old Windows 2000 OS.

However after formatting the new drive as NTFS and installing a load of
programs and files from my old drive, I noticed that I appeared to be minus
33 gigabytes of disc space, I subsequently found out that apparently Windows
2000 will only accommodate a maximum of a 127 gigabyte drive.

Whilst I appreciate that I should have partitioned the drive before loading
the operating system, I don't wish to start all over again if I can possibly
avoid it.

Is there any type of programme available that will allow me to recover the
missing 33 gigabytes of disc space from the exsisting OS, without having to
re-format my drive and reload everything all over again, TIA Ivan.


Maxtor Knowledge Base:
http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/m...user/entry.php

Look under "Most Popular Help Topics - Top five most frequently asked
questions", and see #7: "137 GB Limitation - Most system BIOSes are
limited to 137 GB because it can only support 28 bit Logical Block
Addressing (LBA). For a resolution please refer to Answer ID 960. "

This gives a pointer to the Maxtor Big Drive Enabler software patch
(Seagate do something similar, which is why I guessed it's there)

Dunno if a repartitioning/reformat is required, but I'll guess so.
See this article:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=418
about disc cloning using your old hard disc, although it sounds like
it might be easier just to reload all the software.


Martin
Martin @ Strawberry Hill

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:05:19 +0100,
wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:09:41 +0100, "Ivan"
wrote:

After asking for advice on this news group about up-dating my computer on a
limited budget (£200) I opted for the one suggested by 'Andy' and wound up
with a Asus K8N motherboard, 512MB of Crucial memory, an AMD Sempron 2800
processor, 160 gigabyte Maxtor hard drive and a 450 watt power supply.

Maxtor Knowledge Base:
http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/m...user/entry.php

Look under "Most Popular Help Topics - Top five most frequently asked
questions", and see #7: "137 GB Limitation - Most system BIOSes are
limited to 137 GB because it can only support 28 bit Logical Block
Addressing (LBA). For a resolution please refer to Answer ID 960. "

Since it's a new motherboard I wouldn't expect that to be a problem, if
it is then there should be a BIOS upgrade available (I can't remember
which BIOS the Asus motherboards use, but all of them should handle
large drives these days).

Dunno if a repartitioning/reformat is required, but I'll guess so.
See this article:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=418
about disc cloning using your old hard disc, although it sounds like
it might be easier just to reload all the software.

If it's changed the disk geometry (not just the number of cylinders)
you'd need to reformat. Otherwise it should just be unused space so
could be allocated as another partition (or Partition Magic and others
could 'grow' the existing partition).

However, I think it's more likely a number problem (1 million bytes
instead of a megabyte) and NTFS overhead...

Chris C

"Chris Croughton" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 15:05:19 +0100,
wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:09:41 +0100, "Ivan"
wrote:

After asking for advice on this news group about up-dating my computer
on a
limited budget (£200) I opted for the one suggested by 'Andy' and wound
up
with a Asus K8N motherboard, 512MB of Crucial memory, an AMD Sempron
2800
processor, 160 gigabyte Maxtor hard drive and a 450 watt power supply.

Maxtor Knowledge Base:
http://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/m...user/entry.php

Look under "Most Popular Help Topics - Top five most frequently asked
questions", and see #7: "137 GB Limitation - Most system BIOSes are
limited to 137 GB because it can only support 28 bit Logical Block
Addressing (LBA). For a resolution please refer to Answer ID 960. "

Since it's a new motherboard I wouldn't expect that to be a problem, if
it is then there should be a BIOS upgrade available (I can't remember
which BIOS the Asus motherboards use, but all of them should handle
large drives these days).

Dunno if a repartitioning/reformat is required, but I'll guess so.
See this article:
http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=418
about disc cloning using your old hard disc, although it sounds like
it might be easier just to reload all the software.

If it's changed the disk geometry (not just the number of cylinders)
you'd need to reformat. Otherwise it should just be unused space so
could be allocated as another partition (or Partition Magic and others
could 'grow' the existing partition).

However, I think it's more likely a number problem (1 million bytes
instead of a megabyte) and NTFS overhead...

Chris C

Many thanks for both your replies, there appears to be no problem with the
BIOS, as it readily accepts the HD and displays the model number and it as
being 163.9 gigabytes.

I looked at the Maxtor website as suggested and there was only one item that
really appeared to be applicable, which was a download to upgrade the
operating system (Maxdrive) however installing this as instructed made
little if any difference.

A suggested solution I saw elsewhere on a forum for someone experiencing a
similar problem with Windows 2000, was to format the drive into two separate
80 gigabyte partitions.

However thinking back to the original installation using my Windows 2000
disk which appeared to format the HD ok, it then refused to continue with
the install telling me that there was a problem with the formatting, I then
did a (quick) format with a borrowed copy of Windows XP and continued with
the complete installation.

I then installed my Windows 2000 over the top of that which apart from the
lost drive space has since been working fine.

Checking out the disc properties tells me that the capacity is
137,427,943,424 bytes / 127 gigabytes.

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:09:41 +0100, "Ivan"
wrote:

After asking for advice on this news group about up-dating my computer on a
limited budget (£200) I opted for the one suggested by 'Andy' and wound up
with a Asus K8N motherboard, 512MB of Crucial memory, an AMD Sempron 2800
processor, 160 gigabyte Maxtor hard drive and a 450 watt power supply.

Unfortunately as that was a total sum of my budget gone, for now at least
I'll have to stick with my old Windows 2000 OS.

However after formatting the new drive as NTFS and installing a load of
programs and files from my old drive, I noticed that I appeared to be minus
33 gigabytes of disc space, I subsequently found out that apparently Windows
2000 will only accommodate a maximum of a 127 gigabyte drive.

Which service pack is included *in* your win2k CD? If it is sp2
or earlier it won't support 48bit LBA.

See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305098/EN-US/

If this is the problem the method to avoid having to buy a later
copy is called 'slipstreaming' (google for it). Basicaly you create a
new master CD with the latest SP incorporated.

Regards,
Harry.


----== Posted via Newsfeeds.Com - Unlimited-Uncensored-Secure Usenet News==----
http://www.newsfeeds.com The #1 Newsgroup Service in the World! 120,000+ Newsgroups
----= East and West-Coast Server Farms - Total Privacy via Encryption =----

On Sun, 27 Mar 2005 16:09:41 +0100, "Ivan"
wrote:

After asking for advice on this news group about up-dating my computer on a
limited budget (£200) I opted for the one suggested by 'Andy' and wound up
with a Asus K8N motherboard, 512MB of Crucial memory, an AMD Sempron 2800
processor, 160 gigabyte Maxtor hard drive and a 450 watt power supply.

Unfortunately as that was a total sum of my budget gone, for now at least
I'll have to stick with my old Windows 2000 OS.

However after formatting the new drive as NTFS and installing a load of
programs and files from my old drive, I noticed that I appeared to be minus
33 gigabytes of disc space, I subsequently found out that apparently Windows
2000 will only accommodate a maximum of a 127 gigabyte drive.


Which service pack is included *in* your win2k CD? If it is sp2
or earlier it won't support 48bit LBA.

See: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305098/EN-US/

If this is the problem the method to avoid having to buy a later
copy is called 'slipstreaming' (google for it). Basicaly you create a
new master CD with the latest SP incorporated.

Regards,
Harry.

z

On Tue, 29 Mar 2005 10:55:37 +0100, Harry Broomhall
wrote:

(The same message twice)

Sorry about that, Newsfeeds insisted that the first one didn't go!
:-(

Regards,
Harry.

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 20:22:32 +0100, Ivan
wrote:

"Chris Croughton" wrote in message
...

Since it's a new motherboard I wouldn't expect that to be a problem, if
it is then there should be a BIOS upgrade available (I can't remember
which BIOS the Asus motherboards use, but all of them should handle
large drives these days).

If it's changed the disk geometry (not just the number of cylinders)
you'd need to reformat. Otherwise it should just be unused space so
could be allocated as another partition (or Partition Magic and others
could 'grow' the existing partition).

However, I think it's more likely a number problem (1 million bytes
instead of a megabyte) and NTFS overhead...

Many thanks for both your replies, there appears to be no problem with the
BIOS, as it readily accepts the HD and displays the model number and it as
being 163.9 gigabytes.

But what sort of 'gigabytes'? 2^30 (1,073,741,824), 1000 x 2^20
(1,048,576,000) or 10^9 (1,000,000,000)? All three are used by
different manufacturers under the label "gigabyte", disk manufacturers
usually use one of the smaller ones because it makes their disks sound
bigger. I'm pretty sure that my Maxtor "160GB" is smaller than 160 x
2^30 bytes.

If you go into Settings / Control Panel / Administrative Tools /
Computer Management, and look under Storage at Disk Management, you
should see your disk with the partitions. If you right-click on the
grey area saying "Disk 0" (or whichever disk is your large drive) and
select Properties it will show you the size in MB on tab "Volumes", this
is the size in Computer Megabytes (2^20). What does this say? Does it
show any blank space?

However thinking back to the original installation using my Windows 2000
disk which appeared to format the HD ok, it then refused to continue with
the install telling me that there was a problem with the formatting, I then
did a (quick) format with a borrowed copy of Windows XP and continued with
the complete installation.

Another possibility is that your drive has a load of bad tracks, and
WinXP has formatted it ignoring those.

I then installed my Windows 2000 over the top of that which apart from the
lost drive space has since been working fine.

Checking out the disc properties tells me that the capacity is
137,427,943,424 bytes / 127 gigabytes.

Disk properties or drive properties? The latter is the formatted
capacity...

Chris C

"Chris Croughton" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 20:22:32 +0100, Ivan
wrote:

"Chris Croughton" wrote in message
...

Since it's a new motherboard I wouldn't expect that to be a problem, if
it is then there should be a BIOS upgrade available (I can't remember
which BIOS the Asus motherboards use, but all of them should handle
large drives these days).

If it's changed the disk geometry (not just the number of cylinders)
you'd need to reformat. Otherwise it should just be unused space so
could be allocated as another partition (or Partition Magic and others
could 'grow' the existing partition).

However, I think it's more likely a number problem (1 million bytes
instead of a megabyte) and NTFS overhead...

Many thanks for both your replies, there appears to be no problem with
the
BIOS, as it readily accepts the HD and displays the model number and it
as
being 163.9 gigabytes.

But what sort of 'gigabytes'? 2^30 (1,073,741,824), 1000 x 2^20
(1,048,576,000) or 10^9 (1,000,000,000)? All three are used by
different manufacturers under the label "gigabyte", disk manufacturers
usually use one of the smaller ones because it makes their disks sound
bigger. I'm pretty sure that my Maxtor "160GB" is smaller than 160 x
2^30 bytes.

If you go into Settings / Control Panel / Administrative Tools /
Computer Management, and look under Storage at Disk Management, you
should see your disk with the partitions. If you right-click on the
grey area saying "Disk 0" (or whichever disk is your large drive) and
select Properties it will show you the size in MB on tab "Volumes", this
is the size in Computer Megabytes (2^20). What does this say? Does it
show any blank space?

However thinking back to the original installation using my Windows 2000
disk which appeared to format the HD ok, it then refused to continue
with
the install telling me that there was a problem with the formatting, I
then
did a (quick) format with a borrowed copy of Windows XP and continued
with
the complete installation.

Another possibility is that your drive has a load of bad tracks, and
WinXP has formatted it ignoring those.

I then installed my Windows 2000 over the top of that which apart from
the
lost drive space has since been working fine.

Checking out the disc properties tells me that the capacity is
137,427,943,424 bytes / 127 gigabytes.

Disk properties or drive properties? The latter is the formatted
capacity...

Chris C
Under Disk 0 Properties it says, Capacity: 156328MB. Unallocated space:
25266MB. Under volume: capacity 131061MB.

As Harry has pointed out mine is an early version of Windows 2000 (which I
have downloaded Service pack four for) and doesn't support 48bit LBA.
However I presume that this upgrade is something that must be incorporated
on the original installation disk.