Member Avatar for Syakoban

Hi,

I'm putting together a new machine for my office work. I chose a 160GB HD and Win2000. When I go to install Windows it only sees 131070GB on the drive and only lets me partition 131062GB and reserves another 8 for partition info. I know drive capacities are rounded off, but something doesn't add up.

Oddly, in the reviews for the HD I looked at before buying, I saw that someone mentioned this very issue. Why does this happen? Is there a way around it? I don't really need the missing space, but it feels weird not to use what is there.

Thanks guys! :)

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by gemini4

Dani AI

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Most likely cause: the old "large-disk" addressing limit rather than a bad drive. The symptom described by (BIOS reporting a larger physical disk while Windows 2000 shows a truncated size) is typically caused by 28-bit LBA support in older OS/driver stacks. That limits the portion the OS can see; marketing vs. binary-size differences that mentioned add confusion but are not the root cause. As suggested, checking BIOS is a good first step—but the real fix is getting 48-bit LBA support into the boot stack.

Practical steps that fixed this for many Win2000 installs:

  • Update the motherboard BIOS to the latest vendor release and read the notes for "large disk" or "48-bit LBA" support.
  • Use storage-controller drivers that support 48-bit LBA. During Win2000 setup, load the vendor's SATA/RAID driver (F6/third-party driver) or slipstream service packs and drivers into the install media so the OS can see the full disk.
  • If the controller BIOS has a SATA mode option, using IDE/compatibility mode can allow installation with the generic driver as a temporary workaround.
  • If motherboard/OS updates are not practical, use a PCI SATA controller card whose BIOS/drivers support large disks—install Windows using that controller.
  • As an alternative for data, attach the drive to a modern OS or live Linux to partition/use the full capacity, then return it to the Win2000 system and load appropriate drivers.

Cautions: Win2000 uses MBR for boot disks and does not support GPT boot; for very large disks (multi-TB) a modern OS is required. Back up any data before flashing BIOS or repartitioning. For targeted driver/hotfix guidance, identify the motherboard model and the drive/controller make and model.

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Member Avatar for Dani

I *THINK* (and am probably wrong) that it is a marketing issue. Some companies will brand hard drives with 160,000 megs as 160 gigs. But there are really 1,024 megs in a gig, not a flat 1,000, so that consumes some of those missing megs. Additionally, depending upon the file system you choose for the partition, you are using up megs to store file info (NTFS in particular, I believe?)

Take what I say with a grain of salt. I am really not sure ...

Member Avatar for Syakoban

Thanks. I understand that, but the numbers still don't add up as I figure it???

Member Avatar for gemini4

I guess they sold you a 140GB hard drive and they said it's 160GB. You can verify that this is not a glich in the Windows Setup by going into BIOS and verifying the drive information in there.

For a 160GB drive you should show 156,672 MB in Windows Setup

Member Avatar for Syakoban

According to the BIOS it's a 163GB drive. That fits with the math of 160GB x 1024 bytes = 163.84GB

There sure seems to be something with Windows 2000 being the cause of this issue.

Now I'm more determined to resolve this!

Anyone have an answer????? :eek:

Member Avatar for gemini4

You could try an FDisk. Use a bootable floppy and make 2 primary partitions each 80GB and then see if the 2k setup lets you install it. It is very possible that it doesn't support more than a specific size.

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