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View Full Version : Setting up a New Hard Drive....

ArtbyBpc
12-21-2005, 04:20 PM
This is the first hard drive I have ever installed myself. I bought a new Hard Drive (Hitatchi 160g SATA) to put in my system. I partitioned it as the primary hd with Windows XP OS on it. I formatted it as NTFS because I have read that it is more stable this way rather than a FAT32 format. Everything is up and running great (whew). I am just surprised about the decrease in the size the disk space is after the format. The space decreased now to 127g (of 160g HD) total free. Is that normal? It just seems like a bit much of a decrease. I know that Windows XP is taking up a big chunk of that, but 33g seems like alot! Maybe not, after all I am new to this. Thanks for your help.

*Also, maybe you could help me out with one more thing. I have another 200g SATA Western Digital HD. Is it possible that I could set this up as a secondary HD (not in raid). That way I would keep the OS and all Software on mt 160g Hitatchi and keep all of my Files (maya,photoshop,ect.) on the 200g WD. Ofcoarse, another option would be to set them up in a raid, but would loose alot of HD space. Thanks
andytw
12-23-2005, 06:44 PM
If your Win XP disk did not include Service Pack 1 (or 2) then Window's will only recognise disks up to 127GB.
If this is the problem then you can either install SP2 and use a program (such as Partition Magic) to access the rest of the space on the disk or reinstall Windows using a disk with at least SP1 intergrated into it.

If your install disk has SP1/2 intergrated into it then the most likely cause is an outdated BIOS. If updating to the latest BIOS for your motherboard doesn't fix the problem, then it is probably a limitation of your motherboard.
lots
12-24-2005, 01:05 AM
Also, to top it off, hard drive makers count Megabytes differently. To them, 1GB is 1000 MB, but in truth, 1GB is 1024MB. You will lose about 4GB on a "160GB" hard drive due to this difference in counting.
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12-24-2005, 01:05 AM
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