SATA Hard Drives Not Reporting to Full Capacity in XP

[KungFuFighter]

Hi,

been some time since I posted a question but I recently put together a new rig and ran into something interesting. My sata hard drives are not at full capacity (storage space).

System Specs:

CPU: AMD 64 X2 3800+
MoB: ASUS A8N Premium
RAM: 1 GB Patriot (512x2 in dual channel mode)
HD1: Seagate SATA150 160 GB (Nforce4 Sata Controller)
HD2: Seagate SATA150 200 GB (Silicon Image Controller)
HD3: Seagate SATA150 200 GB (Silicon Image Controller)
OpSys WinXP

Issue 1.

The main drive I have which is on the SATA controler for the Nforce4 chipset in the BIOS reporst correctly as a 160 GB Drive. When I installed XP on this (an older version without SP2 or SP1 integrated and I didn't slipstream them in) the drive only reported as a 120 GB (or so) with an unallocated space of 20GB or so (which wasn't so bad as I used that for a ghost image partition). But I'm something in the range of 20 GB short (or so). I am thinking that XP before SP2 might have had the large drive limit that Win2000 had and that some space is just lost.

Issue 2.

I have 2 additional SATA HDs on the Silicon Image controller...in the bios they are both seen (and in Windows as well) but whether RAIDed together (RAID 0 for some video editing 3-D renders) or set as single disks they are only seen as 186 GB drives when in fact they are 200 GB drives (I should see 2 200 GB drives or one 400GB RAID 0 drive). Max I get from the RAID is 372GB or 186GB per drive single.

I didn't have to load any RAID or SATA controllers during the install as the drives were seen fine.

I've updated the BIOS to the lastest non-beta version 1007.

Any ideas or suggestions? I am thinking that since it was an older install of XP that the main (160 drive) will just be that way, but soon after install I updated to SP2.

Would perhaps unistalling the 2 200GB drive and now that SP 2 is on there re-installing them assist in recovery of the lost storage space..I'm thinking though that it will take more than that since the BIOS only sees them as 186GB.

Any suggestions will be gladly appreciated.

Cheers

KFF

 

[John]

1) Use a slipstreamed copy of XP w/ SP1 or SP2 and you'll see the full 'formatted' capacity (149GB). Otherwise you can install a partitioning utility to move the space around.

2) http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.aspx?i=136

 

[KungFuFighter]

Thanks John...
I knew it wasn't a 1:1 ratio when doing the conversion from what was reported as 200GB to what is actually available....should have gotten out the calculator first..dign't think the loss was that much though.....thanks for the info...

HOMER SIMPSON NOISE......looking at my older system and realizing on this Win2K rig that there is a 200GB ATA drive in that.....yup....windows and the bios reports it as 186 (I had done the updates for the large drive support on 2K).......my bonehead mistake for not realizing this and checking first on this machine.....along with doing the calcs....

A prime example of what staying up too late can do to your brain, esp. after a long training session into the late hours of the night....

Thanks again

"ALL IS WELL"

 

[KungFuFighter]

Hmmmm this is weird though....all the calculations add up....

In XP the 160GB drive does show up as approx 149GB.....a 127.99 allocated and then the 21.06 unallocated = 149.05...what it should be. In hte BIOS it reads as a 160GB drive

Now the 200s when in a RAID0 show as 372.62 (which is double the 186.00 the 200s actually are in terms of real storage space). But in the BIOS they show as the two separate 186gb drives in the RAID at 372 or separately when not RAIDED as 186 and 186.

What I find odd is that the 160 is reported as it's converted Gigabyte number but the 200s are reported as the real number.

I suspect (late night guess here) that the 160 on the NForce4 SATA controller is reporting this as a any HD would be reported (RAID is not turned on for this controller) but on the Silicon Image Chip since the default is RAID enabled (don't seem to have a choice with this controller) it is reporting the actual disk size available to build the raid from and what the total size will be depending on the type of RAID chosen)

This wasn't a question....just something I found interesting. I am betting turning on the RAID feature on the NForce4 will result in something similar.

Never worked with RAID before at this level.....so this was a surprise and a puzzle at first until I had the suggestion and then thought about the differences a bit...

Again the odd things that your head does late late at night/early morning...

That and/or physical exhaustion....ugh...sparring......