Why is my 160GB Hard Drive only showing up as 125GB Free Space?

[kevs]

So I finally got my Seagate HD today, woot! But, it only shows that it's only got 125GB of storage instead of 160GB....does anyone know why?

If so, how do I fix it?

[Bires]

Use NTFS instead of FAT32?

Older bios's had trouble with drives larger than 120GB, but that was more than two years ago. Maybe a jumper or somthing needs to be moved on the drive.

[kaml20]

update to the next service pack so your xp is 48 bit then reformat the drive it should read 149 gb like mine does now

or you could read the little folded piece of paper in the box that tells you why this problem occurs and how to install next service pack


read the papers in the box, i made the same mistake and went running around asking everyone i knew as well. take some time, calm down, cause you got an awsome deal and you now have 150 gigs so much that you wont know what to do (unless you record live tv via your computer)

[SmokeyDP]

update to the next service pack so your xp is 64 bit then reformat the drive it should read 149 gb like mine does now

Windows XP 64 is not a service pack its a seperate operating system....

All of the Windows XP 32 bit systems have the same limitation reguardless to service pack. Some 200GB hard drives come with a IDE card that converts from 32bit to 48bit so the computer will recognize the whole drive.

I would try to convert it to NTFS with partition magic. If that doesn't work you can try to see whats going on with partition magic.

[Maarchk]

Yeah those gigabites are never quite what they say. You lost some to formatting and some to false advertising. 160 gigabits X 1000 = 160000 megabites. But divide by the true computer base 2 number of 1024 and you get 156.25 gb. Then you add in formatting and you get the 149gb that kaml20 talks about. So less then that and my guess is its formatted for an older os and thus i would reformat it to NTFS like Smokey said.

[SmokeyDP]

i would reformat it to NTFS like Smokey said.
If your OS is on it or you have data on it you can just use partition magic to convert it and resize it on the fly.

[kaml20]

http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/tp/137gb.pdf
should give more insight, yes i was wrong ...

seagate informs that there are 5 seperate solutions
update your os
buy an add-in pci controller card
install the intel application accelerator
upgrade your os
do nothing and wait until you upgrade later

try this first
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/faq/137_winxp.html

and make sure you have ntfs

or contact seagate 1-800-SEAGATE (1-800-732-4283) there should be someone who sounds like a fat southerner answering the phone, I called and got through almost instantly.

seems like they are located in the south (but they are in co)

[kevs]

Thanks for the help everyone! I used Partition Magic and merged my drive. I now have 149 GB available.

Hey, it's not my full 160, but it's better than 125. ;)

[kevs]

*sigh* I just added my slave drive of another 149 GB...it feels good to be up and running again (but now with 298 GB of storage!).

Thanks for the help, everyone! :)