Upgrade HD on XPS 1210 - missing GB's

Hi,

I upgraded my HD yesterday from the standard 120 GB that came witht the machine to a Samsung 250 GB. I also used Acronis to image my former HD (including the smaller partions for Media Direct and diagnostic tools??) and copied this on to the new Samsung from a USB disk and booting fro Acronis' recovery disk.

Everything went well except that the size of my new HD reads as my former HD - 120 GB which kind of defeats the purpose of the upgrade. I have tried to use XP's disk management and various partition software (Partition Commander 10) to resize the main partition to the physical size of the disk, but there is no option to do this - it seem that the machine only sees my new disk as a 120 GB disk.

In the Bios, it is listed as 120 GB disk, and there is no way of entering the data and correct size manually.

I also gave up the Acronies image, and started the reformat and re-installation of Windows XP in the hope that this would make my whole HD come alive, but when I was given the option to delete the old partition and reformat a new one, the largest partition I was given the option to format was 120 GB, so I stopped the re-installation and kept the image.

Dell wont help since the new HD was not bought from them, tech support at Samsung or the vendor does not have a clue.

Any suggestions on how to get the 250 GB??

Christian

 

Install Service Pack 2 (SP2).

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/sp2/default.mspx

 

SP 2 is installed, and everything is up to date.

 

could this be a hardware limitation? motherboard maybe?

 

If the BIOS list it as a 120GB then that is your problem (not a windows or software issue). DELL sells the M1210 with HDDs up to 200GB, therefore it is hard to think of it as a BIOS limitation either. Hmm......

However there is a BIOS update for M1210 dated April 2007, but the fixes listed there has nothing to do with the hard disk.

 

Do the BIOS updates and also check disk manager, right click my computer, manage, disk management, and see what it says.

 

Thanks, I'll try these steps and see if it helps.

 

hook it to a desktop if possible with an external USB casing or preferably a IDE- Mini IDE converter and see what it reports...
A Intel 945 board (as on the Dell 1210) should not have a problem with 250 GB I guess...

 

It shouldn't have an issue at all. It's a Sata port, the hard drive is a Sata hard drive...a snapshot of the disk manager main screen would be perfect right now.

 

I already had the A07 Bios.

I am not allowed to post attachements, how can I provide a snapshot of the Disk Manager?

Christian

 

Upload the file www.blogphotohost.com

 

The problem seems to be (maybe) that Acronis har made it into a 120 GB hardisk when I reconstructed the partition from the original disk. The only indication I have that it is a 250 GB is when I run the Dell HD diagnostics - it is still listed as 120 GB disk, but when doing the seek tests it was only at about 50 % of the maximum listed blocks and it continued while the block numbers looked like gibberish.

What I need is probably a bootable CD that will restore it to factory standard, but it needs to read NTFTS. Any suggestions?

 

You still haven't done what we asked.

Screenshot your disk management.

I bet you just need to allocate the rest and create a partition for it.

 

Fusion Z06,

Hope you are right, but I can see no space to allocate.

Here is the screenshot:

http://blogphotohost.com/show.php?id=61f3F870263S7464Sc9Y2f34b3a8Ya00

 

The size reported by BIOS does not depend on the partition size, however the size of the maximum partition you can make depends on the BIOS. Try connecting it to another notebook or a PC (using an external enclosure).

A very simple question : are you sure that the hard disk is actually 250GB ? what is the model name ?. Had to ask, since this issue is very strange.

 

Natural question.

It is a Samsung, HM250JI, see http://www.samsung.com/Products/Har...es/HardDiskDrive_SpinpointMSeries_HM250JI.asp

 

And it says HM250JI on the label of the disk?
It should say HM250JI in the bios too.

 

It does on the HD label but not in the Bios. Very mysterious.

 

What does it say in the BIOS ? I wouldn't trust the label; BTW from where did you buy it ?

 

Possible that you bought a mis labeled drive...

 

Bought from Komplett.no which is a well known retailer in Norway.

I will try to run the Samsung DOS disk software on it during the weekend, this should correctly identify the disk, but I am struggeling to get a CD boot disk to work with this utility on.

thanks for all help so far

 

Yeah you can also run seatools as well...

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/seatools

Works really well.

 

I think the imaging program messed up your hard drive partitions. You could try a low level format or write 0s on the entire hdd if Samsung's disk utilities have the option, see if the problem clears when you do a fresh install of windows xp.

 

I have found the problem.

When performing a low level format for 233 GB with the Samsung HD utility, the program gave an error message twice at the same spot - at 120 GB. I interpret this as a faulty disk.

Funny that this occured at the same size as my previous HD, but i think this must be a coincidence. Acronis shoulden't be able to mess up the hardware.

I will return for a replacement and try again.

Thanks for all help.

Christian

 

I had the same problem when upgrading. I was upgrading from 80 GB to 100 GB on Dell 1705. The BIOS always reported 78.5 GB.

To use all 100 GB, I did the following:

1. Download HD/SATA config boot CD from Hitachi GST.
2. Configure HD for full capacity (either BIOS or media direct overwrites it). Shut down power
3. Now, boot immediately from CD and image the HD. You will see the full capacity. A
4. After imaging, boot normally.

BIOS will still report full capacity until you try to boot from HD. Once you boot from HD and the boot goes through all the media direct and other options (You don't even know that has happened), it will reset back to the reduced capacity. However, Windows will see the full capacity due to the way the partitions were created.

Something in Dell makes it overwrite the SATA configuration and I suspect it is due to a limitation in Media Direct and how many cylinders off can it be to boot successfully.