160gb hard drive not giving full capacity

I have just installed a new 160gb Western Digital hard drive but it is not giving me the full 160gb. In the bios it says 137.4gb and in 'My computer' it shows as 149gb with 69.1 mb used.

Also in Windows XP under 'disk management' in control panel when its first installed or i try to format it a 'dynamic disk and volume wizard' popups to create the disk as a dynamic disk and a volume. So, then i formatted it, also it doesnt support partioning the drive and when formatting it only lets you format in NTFS file system, there is no FAT32.

The drive is installed as a secondary slave with a DVD-rewriter as the primary device. I had other hard drives on the same channel in the same setup and there was no problem. The 2 other disks show 'basic' disks and not 'dynamic' disk in 'disk management'

The system thinks i want to use this hard drive as a dynamic disk as part of a RAID system.

As for the space reported, it's simply a matter of how you measure a Gigabyte - the binary way, which is 1024 ^ 3 = 1,073,741,824 bytes, or the decimal way which is 1000 ^ 3 = 1,000,000,000. Windows always reports the binary way, whereas drive manufacturers use the decimal way. As the decimal method of calculating the drive size is the ISO standard, you should really just look upon it that Windows is underreporting the drive size.

Windows XP limits the size of volume that it will format in FAT32, if you really must use FAT then you'll need to use 3rd party tools. I'd strongly advise using NTFS, it is a vastly better filesystem.

SuperSparks is correct in how Windows calculates the space.

As to the FAT 32 issue you can partition the drive into 2 or more partitions and then format each using FAT 32. Unless you need FAT 32 for some reason, such as running Linux, or dual booting DOS or Win 95, you are better off with NTFS.

Doc

It's all about Decimal vs. Binary measurements...

For simplicity and consistency, hard drive manufacturers define a megabyte as 1,000,000 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,000,000,000 bytes. This is a decimal (base 10) measurement and is the industry standard.
A decimal capacity is determined by dividing the total number of bytes, by the number of bytes per gigabyte (1,000,000,000 using base 10).

However, certain system BIOSs, FDISK and Windows define a megabyte as 1,048,576 bytes and a gigabyte as 1,073,741,824 bytes. These are binary (base 2) measurements.
A binary capacity is determined by dividing the total number of bytes, by the number of bytes per gigabyte (1,073,741,824 using base 2).

This is why different utilities will report different capacities for the same drive. The number of bytes is the same, but a
different number of bytes is used to make a megabyte and a gigabyte.

For instance...
Various Drive Sizes and their Binary and Decimal Capacities

Drive Size in GB Approximate Total Bytes Decimal Capacity | Approximate Binary Capacity (bytes/1,073,724,841)
(bytes/1,000,000,000)

10 GB ----------------------------------------------------------------------------9.31 GB
20 GB -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18.63 GB
30 GB -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 27.94 GB
40 GB -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 37.25 GB
60 GB -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 55.88 GB
80 GB -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 74.51 GB
100 GB ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 93.13 GB
120 GB ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 111.76 GB
160 GB ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 149.01 GB
180 GB ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 167.64 GB
200 GB ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 186.26 GB
250 GB ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 232.83 GB

Quote:

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Originally Posted by shahan

In the bios it says 137.4gb

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The original design specification for the ATA interface only provided 28-bits with which to address the devices. This meant that a hard disk could only have a maximum of 268,435,456 sectors containing 512 bytes of data per sector thus limiting the ATA interface to a maximum of 137,438,953,472 bytes (137.4 GB). With 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) the limit is 144 PetaBytes (144,000,000 GigaBytes).

In order to use 48-bit LBA, it must be supported by both the BIOS and the Operating System, (and of course the drive itself).

More info:

http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/lba.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_block_addressing

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303013

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126855

So, i do acutally have the full 160gb but i am just not seeing it in the BIOS and in XP ? and i dont have buy a seperate controller card?

(this is my motherboard: 'Gigabyte GA-71XE4')

If i needed the ultra ATA/33 compatible PCI card, is this what i should get:
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NOV-ATA133 ?

If i am not seeing the full 160gb but it is actually there how would i know whether i am really or not using the full capacity because XP could be telling me anything?

Have you read through the links SpywareDr posted?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Doc

SuperSparks is correct in how Windows calculates the space.

As to the FAT 32 issue you can partition the drive into 2 or more partitions and then format each using FAT 32. Unless you need FAT 32 for some reason, such as running Linux, or dual booting DOS or Win 95, you are better off with NTFS.

Doc

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it doesnt even let me choose between the two, i only have NTFS as the option. The reason i like FAT32 is because in case the system goes down i can use a Windows98 boot CD and access the system in dos mode and have access to all my data. Whereas with NTFS its a lot of hassle but i do keep my main xp operating system drive/partition as NTFS. I dont find XP boot cd/disc or the command line in safe mode helpful and its very limited.

GIGABYTE > Support > Motherboard > FAQ of GA-7IXE4
http://tw2005.giga-byte.com/Motherbo...Q_GA-7IXE4.htm

Quote:

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262 Can this MB support 80G HDD or higher? ... More

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GIGABYTE > Support > Motherboard > FAQ Details
http://tw2005.giga-byte.com/Motherbo...AQ/FAQ_262.htm

Quote:

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[Q] Can this MB support 80G HDD or higher?

[A] Please update the latest version BIOS.

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GIGABYTE > Support > Motherboard > BIOS > BIOS of GA-7IXE4
http://tw2005.giga-byte.com/Motherbo...S_GA-7IXE4.htm

Quote:

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How to reflash M/B BIOS?

Download Version F9 (2001/11/12)
http://tw2005.giga-byte.com/Download.../bios_7ixe4_f9

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Note that Windows 2000 would need to be upgraded to SP3 (Service Pack 3) and Windows XP to at least SP1 (Service Pack 1) in order to use hard drives larger than 137GB.

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One of the main reasons for using NTFS instead of FAT32 is because the largest file size in FAT32 is 4GB.

A 160GB drive will be reported in Windows as 149GB, so all of the drive is being used:

160GB = 160000000000 bytes.
160000000000 / (1024^3) = 149.011GB, which is what you are seeing in My Computer.

Ignore what the BIOS says, that is immaterial.

What is shown as the "Capacity" in "bytes" in XP's Windows Explorer? (Right-click the drive icon in "My Computer" and select "Properties").

For example:

https://discussions.virtualdr.com/

ok, thanks. but what is that '^' sign ? can i get it on a calculator?

i will let you know the capacity in bytes when i get back from home.
but do i have to update the bios, that being a dangerous task.

so, according to gigabyte this motherboard does not support hard drives larger than 80gb or is it the decimal vs binary calculations?

160GB = 160000000000 bytes.
160000000000 / (1024^3) = 149.011GB, which is what you are seeing in My Computer.

I have a another 80gb hard drive in the pc and BIOS says it is '80.0 gb' but in XP it reports 74.3 gb.

If it truly does not support anything larger than 80gb, then its a different and physcial problem and i may have to perform the dangerous task of flashing the bios.

also if windows is under-reporting the size, then what if i am trying to fit 160gb and windows stops at 149gb and says thats it, you cant put any more data on the disk?

My apologies if I'm stating the obvious but some readers may not understand that the binary and decimal counts can be different yet they represent the same quantity. The same is true for all radix/base number systems.

Lets compare decimal (base 10) to octal (base 8). Its a lot easier to follow than binary:

The decimal digits followed by octal digits:

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 ...
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 10 ...

So decimal 8 is equal to octal 10. As someone joked "Octal is just like decimal if you're missing two fingers." Since there is no 8 or 9 in octal counts jump from 7 to 10.

Your 160/140 values represent the same physical disk size. You haven't lost any capacity, its just being counted in 2 different ways. Sort of like Arabic versus Roman numerals; you have 10 toes, ancient Romans had X toes but you both have the same quantity of toes.

ok, thank you to everyone, but which advice should i take?

should i go with the binary vs. decimal / octal count and its under-reporting the size? or

flash the bios ? or

put in a pci controller card ?

1. If your mobo will not support over 80GB unless you flash the BIOS and the flash is available to increase that capacity, then use it. A PCI IDE controller may or may not work in this case.

2. IDE will be as slow as the primary device on it. Switch that hard drive and CD writer. Put the hard drive as the primary. Yes, it "worked" in the past, but you were getting slower performance than if they were switched. Legions of computer users in the past, leaning forward in the foxholes of power computing, firing electrons and lobbing memory addresses, have all learned that lesson of slaving hd's to optical drives. Follow them...learn from them. Let their example lead the way.

I wax poetic...

I wax my car.

Your motherboard and BIOS may not support a drive over 137 GB.

According to the numbers Broni posted, the BIOS should be reporting 149.01 GB.
Since it is not and reporting something less, this leads me to believe that the BIOS and/or motherboard does not support the ATA-6 specification needed for 48-bit sector addressing. My understanding is that ATA-6 also includes support for ATA-100 and ATA-133 bus speeds.

The other links that the others have posted have shown that the a BIOS upgrade is available for that motherboard but apparently NOT to make it ATA-6 compliant (48-bit sector addressing).

The fact that the motherboard specifications also report that the IDE channels are ultra DMA 33/66 leads me to believe that the motherboard does not support ATA 100 or ATA 133 operations and therefore cannot support ATA-6 transfer speeds and capacities.

If the motherboard or BIOS does not support ATA-6, the motherboard and/or existing BIOS cannot support drives over 137 GB.

Apparently, a BIOS upgrade is not available for your motherboard to make the upgrade to ATA-6. Not sure if a PCI add-in card would work, but since ATA-100 operations do not seem to be supported, if it did work at all, it may work at lesser speed than the full potential of the drive.

In the first post the OP says that My Computer is reporting 149.1GB. In which case the full size of the drive is being seen. I obviously didn't explain myself very well, but:

160GB decimal = 149GB binary
149GB binary = 160GB decimal

Drive manufacturer's (and the International Standards Organisation) use the decimal measurement, programmers and (and Windows, Linux, etc.) use binary. So you always get a discrepancy on the reported size.

149GB in Windows is the full drive capacity, and you don't need to touch anything at all Shahan.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by SpywareDr

What is shown as the "Capacity" in "bytes" in XP's Windows Explorer? (Right-click the drive icon in "My Computer" and select "Properties").

For example:

http://www.SpywareDrGuide.com/Virtua...n_bytes_01.jpg

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I agree now that

160GB decimal = 149GB binary
149GB binary = 160GB decimal

The actual bytes being displayed before the total number of gigabytes is: (similar to the picture above) is

160,039,239,680 bytes

I have then worked out using the decimal vs. binary formula:

binary = 160 gb = 160,039,239,680 / 1,073,741,824 = 149.05xxx
decmial = 160 gb = 160,039,239,680 / 1,000,000,000 = 160.03xxx

It looks like the bios does not support anything bigger than 137.4gb but XP does. Although in the bios it says LBA support is on it doesnt say whether it is 48-bit or what. It also says 32 bit mode is off for IDE devices, its strange that the bios doesnt support bigger than 137.4gb but XP does. (I wonder what will happen if i bought a bigger hard drive in future)

In the bios the first hard drive reports as 80.0gb with
38309 cylinders, 16 heads, and 255 sectors

the second hard drive as: 20417 Mb (39560 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors)
the last hard drive as: 137.4 gb (4128 cylinders, 255 heads, 255 sectors)

i can now see if manufacturers define 1gb as 1,000,000,000 bytes then 160,039,239,680 bytes will look like 160 gb (they just take the 1st 3 digits in the bytes of 160,039,239,680 and around it off with the gb abbrv.

I have worked out the bytes for the other drives as follows as well:

80,015,491,072 bytes = 74.5gb d: (80gb)
80,023,715,840 bytes = 74.5gb c: (80gb)

if 1gb is actually defined as 1,073,741,824 than it is less than 1,000,000,000 and its showing 149.05gb than the manufacturers are wrong to define 1,000,000,000 as 1gb then the actual size is smaller?

Forget the fight and just accept the fact there are two measurement systems in use.
The ad people use the larger number so they can sell more is all. And no, folks have tried to sue and have lost.
No hdd space is lost even if it looks like it has.

Add a ata 133 card and it can fool the on board bios into letting you add four more IDE devices just as long as each does not exceed 137,000,000 GB in size if they are hdds.

XP, make the C: partiton about 40 GB then install. Go into disk management and pick up the rest of the hdd.

Advantage being, should you have to do a reinstall to C:, nothing is touched of the rest of the drive.

ok.

so, just to confirm 160,039,239,680 bytes is 160gb ?

and is it possible that although the bios cant see anything bigger than 137.4gb but XP is able to?

or is it, if the bios couldn't see anything bigger than 137.4gb how can XP ?

Quote:

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is it possible that although the bios cant see anything bigger than 137.4gb but XP is able to?

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With SP1 as a minimum, then yes since that has the 48-bit in it, you can pick up the balance of the largest hdd made today in disk management. Why I posted this. XP, make the C: partiton about 40 GB then install. Go into disk management and pick up the rest of the hdd.


Some reading on diskmanagement.
http://www.theeldergeek.com/disk_management.htm

48-bit LBA Technology
http://www.48bitlba.com/

XP was picking up the new hard drive as a volume of a RAID stripe set and instead of a basic disk it was thinking it was a dynamic disk to be used as part of RAID stripeset volume.

Disk management wasnt much help. I booted off a Windows 98 CD and fdisked it from good old DOS and that solved the problem. Now its not a dynamic disk, just a 'basic' disk and i can chop it into partitions. Only thing, i still cant format it as FAT32. The reason: i can see the data on all my other drives from DOS if XP got broken.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Train

Why I posted this. XP, make the C: partiton about 40 GB then install. Go into disk management and pick up the rest of the hdd.

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I am already using the 80gb hard drive for XP and some data (although its not partioned yet). The aim of getting the 160gb was to backup data from the 80gb.

FAT 32 formatting solutions:

Use a Windows 98 or Windows ME boot diskette

Or,

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/...32format.shtml

I am getting some different results although 1 Gigabyte = 1073741824 Bytes:

http://webdeveloper.earthweb.com/rep...econverter.htm

http://measurementsconverter.com/byte_converter.html

google also says: 160 gigabytes = 171 798 691 840 bytes

I have found some information a bit more concrete but i guess the its all the same answer just the way they have written it:

Quote:

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It is always important to remember that the nominal capacity of a hard drive (160 GB in our case) isn’t the real capacity of the unit. This occurs because the hard drive manufacturers define 1 GB as being 1 billion of bytes (10^9) while in reality 1 GB represents 2^30 bytes or 1,073,741,824 bytes. All reviewed drives are in fact 149 GB units.

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http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/585

I didnt know this, quite interesting....nominal vs. real capacity... i call them cheats!

Also looking at http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/585 it seems these hard drives are made in the far east and western digital in California http://www.wdc.com/en/company/contact.asp i think that could be why my existing 20gb WDC has been so reliable all these years whereas other drives like seagate, maxtor and samsung gave me problems, never trusted things made in the far east, always things made in UK or US but it seems theres loads of stuff everywhere from far east.

Well that's what we've been saying all along, that there are two different definitions ;)

But I don't look on it at all that hard drive maker's are cheating, the decimal, 1,000,000,000 byte, definition is the ISO standard. I don't see how anyone can be criticised for using an international standard. In reality it is programmers who are out of step here, and you should just look on it that Windows underreports the drive sizes. You'll find the same thing with memory sticks, SD cards, etc.

I meant to also say that the BIOS is only used for booting up the system these days. Once Windows has loaded the drivers it ignores the BIOS, which is why you can have a size limitation in the BIOS without it affecting anything once Windows is up and running.

Here's a link with some good information.
http://www.48bitlba.com/issues.htm

To see if your version of XP PRO includes Service Pak 1, see the following link.
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q303013

Here's an excerpt
Windows XP SP1 includes 48-bit LBA support for ATAPI disk drives. With this support, you can use hard disks that are larger than the current 137 GB limit. By default, support is enabled in SP1. To determine if you are running SP1, right-click My Computer and then click Properties. On the General tab, Service Pack 1 will be listed under "System."

I have Windows XP Pro. service pack 1 & 2 (might download sp 3)

Now, about the FAT32 vs NTFS side of things...

If XP ever breaks down, which it does, how do i get access to the data on NTFS drives?

I know you can resintall on the seperate partition or hard drive or keep a clone of XP and once xp is installed you can access the NTFS data again

or put it into another system if it can see NTFS data

recovery console is very limited - so thats a NO

I also just realised, although i maybe able to access data if it was FAT32 but then i wouldnt be able to copy todays large data parttitions unless you have a DOS system for copying it some drive or another FAT32 and you cant even copy to CD from DOS ?

and NTFS reader for dos wont be much help if you cant copy it somewhere like on to a CD or another partition like FAT32

What I do, and have done for years, is to keep my important data on a separate hard drive to the one that Windows is on (as well as backing it up regularly as well, of course). That way if I ever need to reinstall Windows, I don't have to worry about getting to my data because it is all safe and sound on a different drive, and will be accessible as soon as Windows is up and running again. You can use a different partition on the same drive, if adding another drive is problematic, it's not quite as good, but is still a better solution that keeping the data on the OS partition.

Because my system works so well, I've never been in a situation where my data has become inaccessible on an NTFS volume, but on other people's systems that I've worked on I have been able to use a Linux CD to rescue data - it can read NTFS volumes well these days.