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Install 200 GB hard drive

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I recently installed a 200GB Western Digital hard drive on my daughters computer, but XP only recognizes 128 GB. What is the procedure to get this computer to recognize it all. It has a Biostar M7 VIG1113B Pro motherboard and their website does not have this one listed so it is hard to download an updated BIOS for it.

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Reply To: Install 200 GB hard drive

In reply to Install 200 GB hard drive

Well usually you would have to update the bios but since you say there is no update. I would do the following.

Partion the drive into smaller drives.
either two 100 gig drives or four 50 gig drives.

the good thing about doing this is that is that you can have windows on one partition, programs on another partition,files on another one, and if you want dual boot you add another os to another partition and have lets say xp and 2000 running on the same machine.

Also if you get a virus\or start having problems that you cant fix you can always for format the c drive and only loose what ever is on that partition and not the whole drive.

Reply To: Install 200 GB hard drive

In reply to Install 200 GB hard drive

WD’s Data Lifeguard Tools will allow you to install drive at full capacity. Link follows:

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp#dlgtools

Happy formatting.

Reply To: Install 200 GB hard drive

In reply to Reply To: Install 200 GB hard drive

Limitation may be OS. XP SP1 is required to recognize drives larger than 137GB. If you are installing XP from an original distribution, it won’t partition and format a larger drive without some help. WD Lifeguard Tools overcomes this limitation as well as controller and BIOS limitations.

Reply To: Install 200 GB hard drive

In reply to Install 200 GB hard drive

To determine if you have a BIOS or a Windows problem, you need to enter BIOS setup and verify that the BIOS properly detects the new hard drive.

If the BIOS does not properly recognize the drive, I recommend installing a PCI IDE controller card.

Short of a BIOS update, this is the “best” way to get past hard drive detection issues.

If the BIOS does detect the hard drive properly, then it most likely is that you either do not have SP1 installed, or it did not install properly.

Chas

Reply To: Install 200 GB hard drive

In reply to Install 200 GB hard drive

The motherboard should be able to handle the full drive. Here is the website for the bios update (Might want to verify the board on the company page, but this is what I found based on supplied info): http://www.biostar.com.tw/support/bios/bios.php3?model=M7VIG%20Pro
and on the motherboard: http://www.biostar.com.tw/products/mainboard/board.php3?name=M7VIG%20Pro

Next question. Have you looked at the Computer Management screen to see what XP recognized? I am running a 200Gb on my daughter’s computer on a motheroard that is 5 years old. If Computer Management does recognize the full 200GB then get a tool like Partition Magic to resize the drive.

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