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Incorrect hard drive size in Win2K

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8 replies

by pcegeek

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I have installed a 2nd hard drive (not partitioned or formatted) Both drives are 250GB SATA drives (the system drive works fine and is viewed correctly in Win2K). The BIOS sees both drives and the device manager in Windows sees both drives correctly (by model number). When I go into the drive storage manager, it see the drive as only 130GB. I have tried 2 identical drives with the same result. I have even tried swithing the drives (from drive0 to drive 1 and back) with the same results. Any thoughts??

8 replies

by Former member

Before you do a format, find out what kind of drives they are and download their harddrive testing software. If they are Western Digital then you can download software to check the drives to make sure that they are not marked up incorrectly. I had a harddrive that was marked 500gb but when i put it in my case it just showed 200gb. Took it back to the shop and had it replaced. (Very rare for this to happen).

by dangolrajesh

hi peconet, i also face the same problem. i installed 250gb sata drive in the win2000 server but when i go to disk management it shows only 232 gb only.
sorry i don't know why it happen.

by nentech

You have is decimal verses digital numbers

Most drive sizes are measured by the decimal value 250gb as in 250 billion bytes

Digital numbers are based on binary numbers

If we take your 250gb drive

232 X 1024 = 237568
237568 X 1024 = 243269632
243269632 X 1024 = 249108103168

249 108 103 168 in decimal = 249.1 Giga bytes

This closer to the number you expect

1024 is the closest number to 1000 in base 2 (binary)

The company?s who sell and make the drive are not at fault
The problem is the OS (win 2000) there is a new number standard for this that Microsoft has not adopted

You are not the only person to complain about this
So don?t let it worry you
You still have 250gb its just decimal not digital

Hope this helps you

by nentech

You haven?t been ripped

Just let other people know if you hear them complaining about this same thimg

by jpyles1

This is a known issue. Whether you are running Win2k sp1 or sp4 you should upgrade to service pack 4 and then check the following regestry key if it is correct then those HD's will need to be repartioned.

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. Quit Registry Editor

by srini_vasa

Hai,

I tried to install win 2k server with SP4 several times. It only shows 128 gb but the motherboard shows 320gb and also supports lba. I tried to install in a 40 gb partition, It formatted and transferred the setup files and the system restarted for gui installation, there is no response, i'm using ASUS M2N-MX motherboard with seagate barcuda 320 gb hdd.

Can anyone help with this installation

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