250GB disk shows wrong size in Window (128GB)

[robognome]

I understand there can be slight differences in size due do base-10 billions (10 to the 9th power) and base-2 billions (2 to the 30th power).

But I have a 250 GB and 160GB disk that show up as being 128GB under windows (both disk director 10 and under windows disk manager)

I am running the latest update of DDSuite 10. Do I need to change the cluster size? (currently all partiions are 4k cluster). But wen I boot into dds10 from the boot menu (no windows) the disks show the correct size.

Suggestions?

[robognome]

A couple of essential items:

I am running Window 2000 sp4.
Runing Disk Director 10 build 2089.

[WSFuser]

is teh 128GB just one partition? have u tried resizing the partition with disk director?

[robognome]

No the 128 GB is the size of the disks as reported under windows 2000.

This causes the available space to be reported incorrectly. I feel like I'm walking on thin ice with this so I want to get it resolved.

One interesting point, though - I went ahead and allocated the full 250GB by adding additional partitions using the non-windows disk director from the boot menu.

Then when I boot up windows, the full partition sizes are shown in the windows version of disk director - however the disk sizes are still reported as 128GB :wacko:

Here is the screen shot in windowsl

[WSFuser]

that is definately not normal. try reading this (http://www.48bitlba.com/), i think that is teh issue

[robognome]

Excellent link. Got it bookmarked.

The Bios is good. I just needed the registry tweak to enable 48 bit LBA for windows.

I downloaded big_drive_enabler.exe from Maxtor and ran it. Windows now shows the proper drive sizes.

Now I wonder, if the file system is mangled. I'm keeping backups handy. I'm tempted to reformat and start over. *groan*

But anyway, mystery solved. Thanks 'Fuser.

[chasingmytail]

its a quirk with some versions of windows, you have to go into the rgistry and select enable LBA, cant rember the exact details, if you do a google it'll find it for you and all your big disks will be big again. Have googled it and here's the full thing.

Home > Windows > File System

Enable 48-bit LBA Support for Large Hard Drives (Windows 2000/XP) Popular
By default Windows 2000 SP2, Windows XP and earlier versions of Windows do not support 48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) for drives larger than 137GB as defined in the ATA/ATAPI 6.0 specification.

Open your registry and find or create the key below.
Create a new DWORD value, or modify the existing value, called "EnableBigLba" and set it according to the value data below.

Exit your registry, you may need to restart or log out of Windows for the change to take effect.


Note: Please see Microsoft support article Q305098 for important information regarding this setting.





(Default) REG_SZ (value not set)
EnableBigLba REG_DWORD 0x00000001 (1)

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\P...



Registry Settings
System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\Parameters]
Value Name: EnableBigLba
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (0 = disabled, 1 = enabled)

[chasingmytail]

Use this link to the MS database, scroll down and do the necessary in your registry-it works just fine. Google around for 'enable lba' lots of easy and working answers.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305098