Windows not reporting GB correctly...

[GraingerGuy]

...in the Install screen!

Ok...here's the problem. Right now I'm trying to reformat my C partition and it's reporting that it has 131000 MB. Which is 131 GB right? Well, I set it up before to have 34.1 GB and looking at all the rest of my partitions on that hdd, there are none that have 131GB. I don't want to delete this partition because I am worried that I am going to lose some important stuff.

Not only does it show the wrong GB on the C partition...it also doesn't show my D and E partitions. All of them are NTFS. Please help me!

WinXP Home
WD 250GB hdd

[GraingerGuy]

...in the Install screen!

Ok...here's the problem. Right now I'm trying to reformat my C partition and it's reporting that it has 131000 MB. Which is 131 GB right? Well, I set it up before to have 31.4 GB and looking at all the rest of my partitions on that hdd, there are none that have 131GB. I don't want to delete this partition because I am worried that I am going to lose some important stuff.

Not only does it show the wrong GB on the C partition...it also doesn't show my D and E partitions. All of them are NTFS. Please help me!

WinXP Home
WD 250GB hdd

Ok...I figured out the whole 131 thing as Windows has a limitation of 131 GB. But...it still doesn't make sense why it would be at 131 GB. I set C to only 31.4 GB so why doesn't it report it at that?! I'm thinking if I deleted that 131 GB partition that is reported, it would kill the entire thing thus losing those important things I still want. Help....me.....computer going crazy. :)

[zero2dash]

Ok...I figured out the whole 131 thing as Windows has a limitation of 131 GB.

Umm...dunno where you got this idea from, but I've never heard of XP having a partition size limit under 250 gb. (If it did, people wouldn't use drives that large.)

According to the source themselves -
Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp)


In theory, the maximum NTFS volume size is 264 clusters minus 1 cluster. However, the maximum NTFS volume size as implemented in Windows XP Professional is 232 clusters minus 1 cluster. For example, using 64-KB clusters, the maximum NTFS volume size is 256 terabytes minus 64 KB. Using the default cluster size of 4 KB, the maximum NTFS volume size is 16 terabytes minus 4 KB.

Because partition tables on master boot record (MBR) disks only support partition sizes up to 2 terabytes, you must use dynamic volumes to create NTFS volumes over 2 terabytes. Windows XP Professional manages dynamic volumes in a special database instead of in the partition table, so dynamic volumes are not subject to the 2-terabyte physical limit imposed by the partition table. Therefore, dynamic NTFS volumes can be as large as the maximum volume size supported by NTFS. Itanium-based computers that use GUID partition table (GPT) disks also support NTFS volumes larger than 2 terabytes.

I believe buried somewhere in all this mumbo jumbo, the NTFS format supports up to a 2 terabyte partition size.

Sorry I can't add an answer as to what is the problem with your drive, but I'd definitely check out some of the tools on the Recovery portion of the XP install disc (which is accessed by hitting the 'R' key I believe from the first setup screen). I'd use fdisk and view your partition info to see if they are visible from there; if they're not then you're (probably) really screwed. If the other partitions are visible but the XP setup doesn't see them, you can use fdisk to delete the C partition and recreate it, and then use the XP setup to format and install to that new partition.

I don't know if fixmbr or chkdsk will do you any good; I'd try the fdisk stuff I mentioned above first and hopefully you can fix it that way.