BIOS only sees 32GB after formatting. why?

[twertyto]

I recently made a clean install of WinXP to my Maxtor 250 GB hard drive (6L250R0). Previously BIOS always recognized the full capacity of the drive. After a format and install of WinXP BIOS only recoginzes the capacity as 32GB. How can I fix this?

See update below.

 

[sturm]

What does windows see it as?

 

[twertyto]

Update to the situation.

Windows was only seeing 32 GB just to answer the last question.

After many hours of playing with the configuration. I made sure the hard drive jumper was set to master only. I read that on my brand of hard drive if an additional jumper was placed in a certain position a re-format would do exactly was happened to me. The jumer was actually on cable select so I moved it to master. New format and nothing changed. Then I went into BIOS and enable the POST test which was disabled before again nothing but my HD partition utility now could see the drive at full capacity. I created a new partition with dynamic disk overlay (DDO) so that windows can see over 32 GB.

So everything is bascally fine except BIOS still sees 32 GB and I did DDO to get full capacity. Why? While I should be happy about it I'm not I shouldn't need the DDO for this system.

Any thoughts?

 

[Codesmith]

Is it possible that the drive previously had the software on it and you didn't know about it? For instance if it was previously in another system that needed the overlay software.

Are you certain your motherboard supports 250 GB hard drives without needing a BIOS update?

Are you installing from a pre SP1 CD which has a 127 GB partition size limit?

Did you tinker with any BIOS settings? Have you tried resetting the BIOS back to default settings?

Anyway ithose are my guesses. Otherwise its just really weird that you would have to use overlay software when you didn't before with the same system, same drive and same OS.

 

[twertyto]

First off, thanks for taking the time to answer my post. Now let me address your comments/questions.

The drive could previously have had overlay software before but unlikely for two reasons: 1. No indication of it on boot-up (no banner, text or splash screen). I only know of OnTrack DDO software and the destinctive blue ribbon that appears at start up. 2. Before this incident BIOS reported the full capacity on boot which happens before any DDO software can act.

I am pretty sure that the MB supports 250 GB hard drive since BIOS recognized it as such and I previously partitioned the hard drive to that size and used in under WinXP without DDO. Also I have the most update BIOS firmware for my MB installed.

I believe I am installing from a pre SP1 CD and the partition limit there is 137 I think but I can't given get that high only 32 GB.

I did not tinker with any BIOS settings before hand but have been since this problem arose. I have not tried to clear CMOS or restore BIOS to default settings. I don't want to do this unless I'm sure there is a strong likelyhood an action like that could help.

 

[habs]

I think the problem is your file system. Are you using Fat32? Fat32 is limited to 32 GB (coincidence?).

You can check your file system type by right clicking your harddisk in Windows Exlplorer and selecting properties.

If you are using fat32, I suggest you switch over to NTFS. Normally you would have to reformat to achieve this. But I know there is a program that can convert from fat32 to NTFS without losing anything (if all goes well). It's called something like convertNTFS??

Good luck with that.

 

[maury73]

FAT32 limit is 2TB (2^26 * 32kB) not 32GB.
32GB is a software limit implemented in Windows 2000 and XP Professional in order to force customers to migrate towards NTFS for better management of big volumes.

XP and 2k can mount already created partitions up to 2TB, the 32GB limit applies only in formatting or creating new partitions.

If the partition was already created and formatted prior to installing XP you should have no problem, but if you formatted the partition with XP it truncates it to 32GB if it is FAT32, so you have to convert to an NTFS one.

 

[Nitro350Z]

Did you buy the drive OEM or Retail?

if retail then it should have came with a maxtor maxblast disk, if it was OEM download maxblast 4 from maxtor.

it boots from a floppy or a disk,

when you are in the program, check how it detects the hd, then do a low level format. (this clears the drive and fills it with 0's)

then setup the hd using MaxBlast 4 or what ever the newest one is, since your hd is maxtor it will let you set it up,

in the setup make sure you select the full capacity of the drive, ntfs partition recomended, and it should have a setting that you chose with os you set it up for. choose winxp w/ service pack 1

then when its done, all you have to do is run windows xp setup like normal and it should recognize the full drive already partitioned.

that worked for me when i was installing xp on larger maxtor drives

hopes this helps

 

[habs]

FAT32 limit is 2TB (2^26 * 32kB) not 32GB.
32GB is a software limit implemented in Windows 2000 and XP Professional in order to force customers to migrate towards NTFS for better management of big volumes.

XP and 2k can mount already created partitions up to 2TB, the 32GB limit applies only in formatting or creating new partitions.

If the partition was already created and formatted prior to installing XP you should have no problem, but if you formatted the partition with XP it truncates it to 32GB if it is FAT32, so you have to convert to an NTFS one.

Obviously I was pointing out that the 32GB limit and Fat32 are the problem in his context (Windows XP). Just trying to help diagnose a specific problem and offering a quick solution, not trying to showoff my knowledge or doing a Wikipedia transcript .

 

[twertyto]

Nitro,

I purchased the drive OEM and downloaded the Maxblast software, reformatted just like you said and initially even after that Maxblast wasn't allowing a partition larger than 32 GB. Only after a second reformat and enabling POST test to run through BIOS on bootup did I finally get to create larger partitions. However the maxblast program is making me use a dynamic drive overlay to allow more than 32 GB to be seen.

Right now BIOS still see the drive as 32 GB but I have created one 135 GB partition and one 115 GB partition (getting over 137 GB is an whole other issue) and everytime I boot the DDO software has to run to allow windows to see the partitions.

Basically things are working ok except startup takes an extra minute and of course my system components are new enough where I shouldn't need the DDO.

 

[jap0nes]

I think the problem is your file system. Are you using Fat32? Fat32 is limited to 32 GB (coincidence?).

yup. i think that too.

Obviously I was pointing out that the 32GB limit and Fat32 are the problem in his context (Windows XP). Just trying to help diagnose a specific problem and offering a quick solution, not trying to showoff my knowledge or doing a Wikipedia transcript Wink.

you have my vote

 

[jap0nes]

what about the drive mapping? is it on LBA, LARGE, CHS, AUTO? You should set it to AUTO or LBA

 

[twertyto]

The file system is NTFS. It has always been. I've never used FAT32 with this drive.

Also, In BIOS everything for the drive is set on auto, that is: Type, LBA/Large Mode, Block, PIO Mode, DMA Mode, Smart Monitoring.

 

[craigspc]

I may be making a silly comment here and if so, please excuse me. However, my drive has a jumper on it for limiting capacity to 32GB. I have no idea why, but after removing the jumper it was fine.

My two drives happen to be a different brand (samsung) and I bought two of them for a Raid 0 setup. One came in an anti-static bag and the other one was in a plastic case. The latter of the two had a small leaflet inside mentioning the jumper setting. Maybe this will help someone in the future.

 

[maury73]

I don't need wiki for theese obvious things, since I worked with embedded devices file systems for years. I simply pointed out that the 32GB limit is valid only if he formatted the drive with XP, not if he formatted it before woth another software and then installed XP on ready made partitions.