Get XP to see full HD capacity?

[deso]

I have 3 HD's, 80Gb, 160Gb and 40Gb. I upgraded Win ME to XP then added SP2 but my system will still only see 128Gb/137Gb of the 160Gb drive. I tried formatting and removing the drive but it seems to be "stuck" at 128Gb/137Gb. I should add that before adding SP2 I used FDISK to partition the drive into 3 partitions of approximately 68Gb, 50Gb and 40Gb but the 3rd one is only showing around 11Gb. Is there any way I can recover the missing space?

[Bluenoser]

The space is not missing from the drive. Hard drives are sold stating the full UNFORMATTED size. When they are formatted this process adds a lot of info on the disk which uses up some space(several megabytes), and you have left the usable space which is less than the stated size.

[vehelpfulguy]

Not sure bluenoser is right.

I think the problem is that older PCs could not support hard drives larger than 137Gb.

To get Large Hard Drive Support you probably need to update your PC BIOS with the latest level.

Find out the make model of your motherboard (or PC manufacturer) and search the web for a site with the latest BIOS.

Make sure you put in the CORRECT BIOS for your motherboard / PC, the incorrect one could cause you to have problems on your PC.

Search the web for "Windows Large Hard Drive" and things like that to read more about Large Drive Support..

One site here:

http://www.largeharddrivesupport.windowsreinst all.com/index.htm

[deso]

Thanks vehelpfulguy. I know that some space is taken up when formatting but certainly not 30-40Gb! I understand the BIOS issue, but unfortunately I already have the latest version available. My understanding was that it was more OS dependant and WinXP SP2 would get round it, but there does seem t be a difference of opinion on that issue from what I have read, i.e. some people say it's down to BIOS and others say the OS will take over. There doesn't seem to be a definitive answer! However, your link looks interesting so I'll give that a go and see where I end up. Cheers.

[rojash]

Presumably you are formatting with NTFS and not FAT32?
Also if the drive was originally partitioned under ME you may need to repartition it.
Go to Start/Progarms/administrative Tools/Computer Management
In the Storage section on the left, click Disk management
In the lower part of the right-hand window, it will show the partitions on each of your physical drives. You may find that you have a 137Gb parttion plus a second unformatted partition. If this is the case, you should be able to delete both parttions, and then create a large one (which you will then need to format).

[deso]

I'm using FAT32 - I'm actually creating a dual boot machine, ME and XP. I've done it before succesfully, but not with a HD over 80GB. I've always partitioned using FDISK and even with the 160Gb drive FDISK saw it all but on booting into windows it was restricted to 128Gb. Only after all this did I install SP2 (my XP disc is an upgrade version without SP1 or SP2 so I need to have ME or 98 installed to start with). I've just bought a brand new PC with a 250Gb SATA HD (with no OS) so I'm hoping it won't be a problem with a modern BIOS. I plan to disconnect the SATA, connect the 40Gb IDE and install Win98 or ME on that then upgrade to XP then add SP2, then reconnect the SATA and partition it using XP then disconnect the IDE and install ME and XP + SP2 (seperate partitions) on the SATA. Any reason why it won't work? (i.e. will I see the full 250Gb SATA drive?)

[fo3nix]

You'll need to use NTFS.

[rojash]

Just out of curiosity, why do you need to dual boot to ME? This seems a bit like owning a Roller but insisting on using a beaten up old banger :-)

[deso]

rojash, the short answer is games - i'm not the only person who uses ths PC - stuff like Command & Conquer and other win95-98 games..
fo3nix - "You'll need to use NTFS." I don't understand why - can you enlighten me please?

[fo3nix]

Well apart from the fact that FAT32 is an old, unreliable filesystem (compared to NTFS, which is also ageing itself), win95/98 can only see drives up to 128GB using this.

FAT32 performance on larger drives is also bad; NTFS is much better at this.

I think you can make games run in 'win98' mode under XP, but personally I'm not sure how. I'm sure others on here do know though.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup /expert/russel_october01.mspx
http://www.pcanswers.co.uk/tips/default.asp?pa getypeid=2&articleid=35332&subsectionid=616

[alfgbt]

Have you tried running these games in xp s compatability mode ?..

[deso]

Yes, I just get an error message "D/windows/system32/autoexec.nt The system file is not suitable for running MS-DOS ans MS Windows applications". But the weird thing is that I can't even find that file - it does exist but only in D/windows/repair and even if I overwrite the extension to "old" the message still crops up.

[rojash]

That's because you need to create a suitable autoexec.nt and config.nt file to emulate the ones that are used in a DOS based system (Don't forget that 95 and 98 actually run under DOS)

Open Help and Support and type Autoexec.nt into the search box to find how to configure these files for individual programs.
Basically the files should look pretty similar to autoexec.bat and config.sys files that you use when running your games (or other progs) in 98

[deso]

Thanks rojash, but I'm still a bit confused cos as I said earlier autoexec.nt doesn't actually appear in windows/system32

[rojash]

I thought I'd made it clear that you need to create it if it doesn't exist.

When you select compatibility mode, XP runs the program in a DOS emulator which is essentially a virtual machine. Just like a real DOS based machine, it requires the equivalent of an autoexec.bat file and a config.sys file, in order to set file paths, buffers, expanded and extented memory etc. As with a real DOS based machine, it can't work properly without these files. Did you read the info in Help and Support, as I suggested?

[rojash]

If it will fit, here is the contents of a typical Autoexec.nt file:
@echo off

REM AUTOEXEC.BAT is not used to initialize the MS-DOS environment.
REM AUTOEXEC.NT is used to initialize the MS-DOS environment unless a
REM different startup file is specified in an application's PIF.

REM Install CD ROM extensions
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\mscdexnt.exe

REM Install network redirector (load before dosx.exe)
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\redir

REM Install DPMI support
lh %SystemRoot%\system32\dosx

REM The following line enables Sound Blaster 2.0 support on NTVDM.
REM The command for setting the BLASTER environment is as follows:
REM SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330
REM where:
REM A specifies the sound blaster's base I/O port
REM I specifies the interrupt request line
REM D specifies the 8-bit DMA channel
REM P specifies the MPU-401 base I/O port
REM T specifies the type of sound blaster card
REM 1 - Sound Blaster 1.5
REM 2 - Sound Blaster Pro I
REM 3 - Sound Blaster 2.0
REM 4 - Sound Blaster Pro II
REM 6 - SOund Blaster 16/AWE 32/32/64
REM
REM The default value is A220 I5 D1 T3 and P330. If any of the switches is
REM left unspecified, the default value will be used. (NOTE, since all the
REM ports are virtualized, the information provided here does not have to
REM match the real hardware setting.) NTVDM supports Sound Blaster 2.0 only.
REM The T switch must be set to 3, if specified.
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 P330 T3

REM To disable the sound blaster 2.0 support on NTVDM, specify an invalid
REM SB base I/O port address. For example:
REM SET BLASTER=A0 <

[rojash]

Here is a typical Config.nt (in both cases, you need to remove REM from the lines that you want to apply):

REM Windows MS-DOS Startup File
REM
REM CONFIG.SYS vs CONFIG.NT
REM CONFIG.SYS is not used to initialize the MS-DOS environment.
REM CONFIG.NT is used to initialize the MS-DOS environment unless a
REM different startup file is specified in an application's PIF.
REM
REM ECHOCONFIG
REM By default, no information is displayed when the MS-DOS environment
REM is initialized. To display CONFIG.NT/AUTOEXEC.NT information, add
REM the command echoconfig to CONFIG.NT or other startup file.
REM
REM NTCMDPROMPT
REM When you return to the command prompt from a TSR or while running an
REM MS-DOS-based application, Windows runs COMMAND.COM. This allows the
REM TSR to remain active. To run CMD.EXE, the Windows command prompt,
REM rather than COMMAND.COM, add the command ntcmdprompt to CONFIG.NT or
REM other startup file.
REM
REM DOSONLY
REM By default, you can start any type of application when running
REM COMMAND.COM. If you start an application other than an MS-DOS-based
REM application, any running TSR may be disrupted. To ensure that only
REM MS-DOS-based applications can be started, add the command dosonly to
REM CONFIG.NT or other startup file.


(continued...)

[rojash]

(...continued)

REM EMM
REM You can use EMM command line to configure EMM(Expanded Memory Manager).
REM The syntax is:
REM
REM EMM = [A=AltRegSets] [B=BaseSegment] [RAM]
REM
REM AltRegSets
REM specifies the total Alternative Mapping Register Sets you
REM want the system to support. 1 <= AltRegSets <= 255. The
REM default value is 8.
REM BaseSegment
REM specifies the starting segment address in the Dos conventional
REM memory you want the system to allocate for EMM page frames.
REM The value must be given in Hexdecimal.
REM 0x1000 <= BaseSegment <= 0x4000. The value is rounded down to
REM 16KB boundary. The default value is 0x4000
REM RAM
REM specifies that the system should only allocate 64Kb address
REM space from the Upper Memory Block(UMB) area for EMM page frames
REM and leave the rests(if available) to be used by DOS to support
REM loadhigh and devicehigh commands. The system, by default, would
REM allocate all possible and available UMB for page frames.
REM
REM The EMM size is determined by pif file(either the one associated
REM with your application or _default.pif). If the size from PIF file
REM is zero, EMM will be disabled and the EMM line will be ignored.
REM
dos=high, umb
device=%SystemRoot%\system32\himem.sys
files=40

[rojash]

You can work out exactly what you need in these files by booting into your current DOS environment (be it Win95, 98 or ME) and checking the contents of Autoexec.bat and Config.sys

[deso]

Sorry rojash, I misunderstood (it was late and I was tired...). I understand what you mean now. I'll be doing a clean reinstall pretty soon so I will keep all the above and give it a go. Thanks for your help.

[deso]

Just in case anyone is interested, I attached a 40Gb HD and installed XP & updated to SP2, installed Partition Magic 8, connected 250Gb SATA drive then used PM8 to partition and format it (all in FAT32 by the way). Once partitioned I installed WinME to C on the SATA and XP (+SP2) onto D. Worked like a dream. Proves conclusively that the 128/137Gb limit is a BIOS thing rather than OS.