Western Digital 640GB can only be formatted to 137GB

[ap1982]

I bought a GIGABYTE GA-M68MT-D3 AM3 NVIDIA GeForce 7025/nForce 630a chipset Micro ATX AMD Motherboard
and a Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive. When I was trying to format the HD for the first time, it wouldnt let me format it for 640GB but instead I could only do it for 137GB even though within the BIOS of the motherboard and also within Windows XP I can see that the HD has a capacity of 640GB. I was reading about 48-bit LBA support but that doesnt seem to be the case since the EnableBigLba Tool says I have Windows XP SP2 and there is nothing I need to do. Reading reviews of other people who bought the same motherboard I have in Newegg it seems they have 500GB HD's working fine with it. Anyone know what steps I need to take to be able to format my HD for 640GB?

HD
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136218

Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128454

 

[jitpublisher]

How are you trying to format it?
Your motherboard has nothing to do with this problem, it is your OS. But if you do have XP SP2, you should have no problem there either?
Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management is where you should be doing this......

 

[ap1982]

How are you trying to format it?
Your motherboard has nothing to do with this problem, it is your OS. But if you do have XP SP2, you should have no problem there either?
Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management is where you should be doing this......

So right now I only have 1 HD in my Desktop, which is were Windows XP was installed, its there any way I can format the HD from the boot menu were I select the partition were I want to install Windows XP? Like right now if I do as you instructed I can only created a Primary Partition or Extended Partition from Disk Management. I wanna have all 640GB in one partition, not in 2 or more partitions, otherwise ill have the Windows XP partition with 137GB and another partition with the rest or some of the remaining GB's, which is not what I want.

This is a new PC, and it seems like from the boot menu were you format, create a partition and install the OS you cannot create a partition bigger than 137GB for some reason.

 

[jitpublisher]

You can if your install version of Windows is SP2 or later. If your original install disk is only standard XP, you will have to make your self a new install disk with "SP2 slip streamed" onto it. I am heading up to the mountains for skiing right now, just google around for the directions to slipstream SP2 onto a standard XP install disk if this is what you need to do.

 

[ap1982]

You can if your install version of Windows is SP2 or later. If your original install disk is only standard XP, you will have to make your self a new install disk with "SP2 slip streamed" onto it. I am heading up to the mountains for skiing right now, just google around for the directions to slipstream SP2 onto a standard XP install disk if this is what you need to do.

Alright thanks for your help sir! May the hair on your toes never fall off!