Windows XP Home to a new wiped clean harddrive (HELP)

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David - 24 Nov 2006 07:15 GMT

I am sorry that this is a really long post!!! (I get carried away with words,
and my little brother says this is my Bibliography of my life.)

Harddrive - Maxtor 120 GB (Diamond Max Plus, Ultra Series)
ABIT VT7 Motherboard
Windows XP Home Edition

I recently wiped my whole harddrive, and tried to install Windows XP Home
Edition.

The sad thing is it says I only have 32 GB on there. Which is so not true.

I have used the harddrive tool (Max Blaster 3, then upgraded to 4), after I
have wiped everything clean. I even ran through the harddrive tool and did
everything to "0", with its utility.

I ran Max Blast 4 again, set up the harddrive to be Win. XP compatible, and
partitioned it so there was a 40 GB harddrive with NFTS, and a 80 GB
Harddrive with NFTS; restarted the computer and started Win. XP setup.

It said I had 32 GB harddrive, and showed only that partition. I after that
cleaned the harddrive again, and partitioned it to be a full 120 GB HD, and
ran the Setup and it still showed up the 32 GB limit.

My jumber settings are right, I updated my BIO's.

I am frustrated to the limit, because before when I did a clean install like
this, I got windows to install, but this time I just can't do it.

Please HELP!

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RajKohli - 25 Nov 2006 03:27 GMT

1. If there are two jumpers then one is for Master / Slave and another is for
32GB Limitation. Try to remove one jumper and see if your hard disk
recognized as 120GB. You don't need to run setup to check this out. See the
capacity within from BIOS. If BIOS is not showing the proper size then
nothing else will show.

2. If you are using any third party utility to partition the hard disk then
don't do this. If you already made some partitions then delete them and let
the Windows Setup program recognize the unpartition space.

3. If still doesn't solve the problem then plug your hard disk into some
other computer and open Disk Managment within from Windows XP and partiton
the hard disk there.

Maybe there are also some limitation of Windows XP Home only. Are you
Windows XP Home or Windows XP Home with Service Pack 2.

Let us know!

> I am sorry that this is a really long post!!! (I get carried away with words,
> and my little brother says this is my Bibliography of my life.)
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
>
> Please HELP!

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David - 25 Nov 2006 08:59 GMT

I looked at the jumpers, and everything was alright. My hard drive is set to
"Master". I only have 1 jumber in the slot for master and thats all.
The BIO's says the hard drive has 32,xxx MB on it. (32 GB). But not the full
120 GB.
The Maxtor's hard drive CD utility (MaxBlaster) says the hard drive has 122
GB.

I also hooked up another hard drive to my computer and made the Maxtor as
slave. I looked at Disk Management and it showed up as 32 MB and there was a
bunch of unallocated space.

I looked at the Windows XP Home CD, and I it like a 2002 version. So I am
sure it doesn't have SP1 at all with it.

I truly don't know how I made Windows XP Home Edition run on this Hard drive
before last year when I completely cleaned it out using DBan.

I am trying the ways you stated below, but I am still having trouble.

This is really sad of me (since I am trying to become a computer tech).

> 1. If there are two jumpers then one is for Master / Slave and another is for
> 32GB Limitation. Try to remove one jumper and see if your hard disk
[quoted text clipped - 45 lines]
> >
> > Please HELP!

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gretti - 27 Nov 2006 04:13 GMT

Have you tried to put the jumpers on cable select CS. This really sounds like
you have it set to 32GB cap. Try it with out the jumpers and see if that
works, also see if the jumper is loose, you may want to try a different
jumper.

> I looked at the jumpers, and everything was alright. My hard drive is set to
> "Master". I only have 1 jumber in the slot for master and thats all.
[quoted text clipped - 66 lines]
> > >
> > > Please HELP!

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RajKohli - 27 Nov 2006 04:36 GMT

If you go into Disk Management (Start -> Control Panel -> Classic View (if
necessary) -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk
Management), it should show the drive with 32 GB used and the rest
unpartitioned and unused. You can either partition it right there and format
it for use. Or you can back up the 32 GB, delete that partition and
repartition as one volume.

If still doesn't help you then I will suggest you, remove the Jumper and
plug both the Hard Disk and CD Drive with different cables. Load the BIOS
settings to default.

Let us know!

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RajKohli - 27 Nov 2006 04:39 GMT

Read the following article and let us know if helpful:

http://www.harddriveupgrade.com/jumper_pins.shtml

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RajKohli - 27 Nov 2006 04:46 GMT

Recreating the partitions through Disk Management while plugin your Hard disk
to another computer should solve the problem. If that doesn't then try the
following registry trick:

Posted at Google.NewGroups
---------------------------------
I have the sollution for you... we had the same problem here and it appears
that windows is missing a registry key. Open your register editor
(start > run > regedit <enter>)
and go to the following folder
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Curr... es\atapi\Parameters
there add a new key named
"EnableBigLba" , type: "REG_DWORD" and "value 1" (excluding the quotes ("))
now restart your cpu and windows will show the true size

Let us know, which one works for you!

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TAJ Simmons - 28 Nov 2006 10:03 GMT

> The BIO's says the hard drive has 32,xxx MB on it. (32 GB). But not the
> full
> 120 GB.

If that's the case, then I don't think windows will recognise your drive as
any bigger than what the BIOS is recognising.

I believe you need to 'flash' your bios, so that it can recognise drives
bigger than 32gb.

Visit the manufactures website for details.

TS

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