127GB - 137GB Drive Space Limit in Windows 2000/XP

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Question:

Why can I only see 127 to 137 GBytes of my 160+ GB drive in Windows XP?
  • Windows XP on a traditional motherboard
  • Windows XP on a PCI Controller Card

Windows XP on a Traditional Motherboard

Windows XP manufactured prior to August 2002 has a native limitation of 137GB supporting ATA interface disc drives. In this configuration WinXP will not create partitions greater than 137GB until after the Service Pack is installed and registry bit EnableBigLBA is set to 1.


For the purposes of this discussion, both the original Parallel ATA (PATA) and the new Serial ATA (SATA) interface disc drives will have the same operating system requirements when attached to the motherboard and using the native Windows drivers.


As of January 2003, new copies of Windows XP Full Versions have incorporated 48-bit Addressing for ATA interface disc drives. You can confirm that your copy has this support by inspecting the installation CD artwork. It should say "Windows XP Home (or Professional) Edition Including Service Pack 1."


For instructions on how to get the latest Windows XP service pack, please see Microsoft article Q322389.


See also the Microsoft Knowledgebase article Q303013 that explains how to enable large drive support after the Service Packs are installed.


Windows XP has a feature called System Restore that records and tracks changes to the system settings and files. If a restore point exists you can undo harmful changes to the previous settings. It is highly recommended that you create new system restore points prior to making significant changes to your system.


New System Considerations If your system BIOS sees the full capacity of the drive and your Windows XP CD says "… Including Service Pack 1" you are completely ready to utilize ATA interface disc drives greater than 137GB. If your BIOS is not up to the task you can apply a BIOS update or use Seagate's DiscWizard Starter Edition and the DDO.


If your Windows XP CD does not indicate SP1, then your boot drive partition will have a maximum size of 137GB. After the OS and SP1 are installed, any additional gigabytes will show up as unallocated space on the drive and you can easily create a second partition with DiscWizard for Windows or the Windows disk management tools. Also, if you prefer to have a single partition, third party applications such as Partition Commander from VCom or Partition Magic from Powerquest may be able to stretch the partition to annex the newly found capacity.


Microsoft does provide a method of merging the Service Pack into an older copy of Windows XP. This process is called "Slipstreaming" and is very complicated. This process requires that you be able to burn a new Windows XP OS installation CD. You can search the Internet for "slipstreaming Windows XP" to find instructions on this process. Seagate does not assist in preparing slipstream installation CDs.


Adding a Drive to an Existing System If Windows XP is already up and running then check MyComputer Properties to determine if your version has SP1. If not, you should install the Service Pack before working with the new hard drive. If SP1 is installed and the Disk Administrator tools show 137GB on your new drive, then EnableBigLBA is not yet on.


Seagate's DiscWizard for Windows disc installation software for Windows is designed to make adding a new drive to a system as easy as possible. For your convenience, Seagate's DiscWizard installation software can set the EnableBigLBA bit in the registry and prepare the drive to full capacity if service pack support is active in the operating system.


If you use the traditional Microsoft Disk Administrator or Disk Management tools to prepare your drive or you need to check the status of the EnableBigLBA registry setting, you can use the Ontrack Reg48bitLBA utility to set or confirm if the setting is enabled.

 

Larger SATA drive that shows up as only 127gb

Windows XP

You need to install Service Pack 2.

Windows 2000

Before performing any troubleshooting with large capacity drives in Windows 2000, confirm that you have Service Pack 3 or higher.

Only 127GB HDD showing Windows 2000 SP4

1 Check to make sure you have SP3 or higher, SP4 is recommended for Windows 2000
2 Any motherboard that has SATA it is likely the bios also detects the full disk size up to 1TB
3 If SP level is correct, The OS will have to be updated to enable LBA by a registry edit.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305098
KB Article ID : 305098
a You must enable the support in the Windows registry by adding or changing the EnableBigLba registry value to 1 in the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Parameters 
1.	Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).
2.	Locate and then click the following key in the registry:

       HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters

3.	On the Edit menu, click Add Value, and then add the following registry value:

       Value name: EnableBigLba
       Data type: REG_DWORD
       Value data: 0x1
4 Restart the installation with the appropriately patched operating system.
a For a boot drive:
You may use a 3rd party "partition stretch utility."
You may also create a 2nd partition on the boot drive with Windows Disk Management, to have more than one partition on the drive.
b For a non-boot drive you can use compmgmt.msc and resize the disk.

When you install a SATA disk larger than 127GB, such as a 250GB, 320GB, 500GB or larger, you will notice that when you put Windows 2000 on the drive the installer will only see 127GB. That's okay for now, go ahead and install Windows 2000. Once the operating system is installed, you need to apply the latest service pack, which is at least SP4 for Win2K. After that make the registry edit described above.

If you do not wish to create a second partition to use the now available remainder of the hard drive, then you need a disk utility to resize the boot partition.

The gparted / clonezilla version 2.3 bootable CD has been verified to work on resizing the boot partition of a sata drive greater than 127GB with a Windows 2000 NTFS partition.

 

 

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