Actual (full) hard disk size not getting detected by laptop and WinXP SP3

Hello All,

I have Acer Travelmate 8000 Series (Model: 8002LCi) laptop having the following specs:
Type: Acer TravelMate 8002LCI
CPU: Intel® Pentium® M 1500 (Centrino™)
BIOS: Phoenix First BIOS Notebook Pro Version 2.0, Ver.3A20
Chipset: Intel® 855GME Chipsatz; 400MHz Front-Side-Bus
Cache: 1 MB
Memory: 512MB (DDR333 PC2700)

Initially this machine had a 60GB HDD (Toshiba - MK6021GAS).
Now I have fixed a new hard disk, Samsung HM160HC 160GB (IDE/PATA) in this laptop.

After fixing this new hdd, I booted the laptop thru WinXP SP3 bootable CD,
- the WinXP is recognizing only 131070 MB (127.99 GB) and not the actual 160 GB capacity.
Could you please help how can i make laptop and WinXP recognize the full the 160 GB capacity?

- also just to check the working of this new hdd, i went ahead with winxp installation on 127.99 GB.
i partitioned the hdd in the config below:
C: 20 GB
E: 60 GB
Rest Unpartitioned: 47 GB
once the installation of winxp was over, only C: was partitioned and formatted while E: was only partitioned and not formatted.
the rest unpartitioned space was left as it is.
Could you please tell as to why the E: was not formatted?

I would appreciate if you please provide the above help asap.

Thanks and regards

 

Are you sure your laptop supports 160 GB IDE drives? Alot of laptops from Pentium M age have the LBA restriction in the BIOS for HDD partitions, my D600 had this issue. Basically the BIOS won't support partitions past 160 GB, this happened when I tried a 250 GB IDE drive in my D600, so I ended up with the HM160HC in my D600.

Also you don't get the full 160 GB, you get ~146 GB usable. Also what do you mean your E: partition was not formatted? Did you format it with the XP disc?

 

You could also check the hdd for bad sectors which could've eaten up some of your disk space

Sent from my EndeavorU using Tapatalk 2

 

Make sure your Windows XP disc is in fact coupled with SP3. It needs to have at least SP1 or later to recognize anything over. I suggest trying another disc that you're sure has SP1 or later just to be sure it's not your installation media.

If you can rule that out, then check your BIOS to see if your BIOS recognizes the drive's capacity differently than XP.

 

Hello All,

Thanks for your replies.

Yes, my laptop supports 160 GB hdd. I think so.
I have WinXP SP3 bootable disc which I used for installation of XP and partitioning of hdd as per the configuration mentioned above. When I saw in the MyComputer -> Manage -> Disk Management, the E: was only partitioned and not formatted. hence my question on this.

Samsung HM160HC is a brand new hdd that I have purchased. I don't think so it is having any bad sectors.

I have used this WinXP SP3 bootable disc multiple times to install XP SP3. Even right now the XP SP3 has been installed on this 127.99 GB config. I think its quite obvious that SP1 & SP2 has been rolled into SP3.
Also, the BIOS only shows the name and serial# of the new hdd and does not show anything related to the hdd size it is using. Only when I boot through the WinXP SP3 bootable disc then I come to know that only 127.99 GB is the total going to be used.

Please help as to how can I utilize the full capacity (160 GB) of the hdd.
Thanks.

 

Hello All,
Any help would be highly appreciated? Thanks