HDD showing incorrect capacity - please help!

[frogstar]

I just formatted my 40gb hard drive back to FAT32 and installed Win98se, which had XP Home on NTFS on it. But drive C properties in the My Computer folder is showing the drive to have only 6.02gb capacity, which is what my other hard drive has, not this one.
My 6.02gb hd is also inside the tower (but not connected to anything), since I've been switching between that and the 40gb one by switching that flat grey data cable and the little white power plug when I wanted to use one or the other.
But I don't understand why the 40gb hd is showing the capacity of the 6.02gb drive.

[rojash]

How old is your BIOS? Does it auto-detect the hard drive at boot up, or do you have to go to settings and select auto-detect?
My guess is that the BIOS thinks it's your other drive (or at least, it did at the time that you re-formatted)

[frogstar]

Yes, that seems to be the case, and I've no idea why or how to fix it.
It's an Award Modular BIOS v4.51PG, BIOS date 12/03/99 (mm/dd/yy).

[Wolfeymole]

98SE will not see drives over 32GB in size.
Hook the 6GB up as Primary Master with the 40GB as Primary Slave.
Format the 6GB to FAT32, you will have no choice anyway.
If you want to install 98 to the 40Gb you will have to make at least two partitions

I personally would use the 6gb as the XP disk formatted in NTFS then use the 40gb for your personal stuff, again formatted in NTFS.

[frogstar]

Didn't know that about 98se. I'll give that method a try.

[frogstar]

Thanks for the info!

[ACtheTROLL]

Fat 32 WILL support partitions up to 2TB .... 2000 and XP cannot CREATE a partition greater than 32Gb but can read a disc up to 2 TB (the work round is to use a 98se boot disc to create the partitions.
(http://www.mcmcse.com/windows_xp/guides/filesy stems.shtml)

6.02Gb is a red herring ... fat 16 is <2Gb - the old bios int 13 limitation was 7.8Gb.... (lba is 7.8-132Gb, lba48 is 132->)

I think the problem is just down to the bios not autodetecting the swapping between the 6 and 40Gb discs

look for a "detect my drive" option in the general settings ... and you'll get the full 40Gb back.

It is a good idea however to have a dedicated system disc ..and seperate data/proggy partitions ... just in case!

Add another partition to the machine and you could have a dual boot machine
Install 98 then xp
and remember 98 can't read ntfs