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New 250gb Hdd Shows as 40gb

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bumpkin

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 6:23PM

Hi, Bought a new Western Digital Sata HDD which I got today. New in anti static bag and labelled WD2500AABS, says on it 250gb. When I put it in my PC it shows as 40gb. Thinking this may be an error I booted from Win XP CD to load OS and it said 38.xx gb. I have contacted the seller by Email but thought I may get faster and more reliable info from here. I can of course return it but do not want to if it is me doing something wrong.

Ray

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 6:41PM

That model definitely shows as a 250GB see here

What version of XP? if you do not have SP3 you may not have support for large drives.

In Windows, click on Start->Run, enter "regedit".

Navigate to the HKEYLOCALMACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\atapi\Parameters registry subkey.

From the Edit menu, select New, DWORD Value.

Enter the name EnableBigLba, then press Enter.

Double-click the new value, set it to 1, then click OK.

Close the registry editor.

Restart the machine for the change to take effect.

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bumpkin

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 7:18PM

Thanks Fruitbat, I bought this as a replacemement for my 320 which failed. In the interim period I used an old IDE 80 just to get it up and working installed only the basics from the XP CD but not SP3 as I did not think it neccessary, I was waiting for the new drive. I will instal SP3 as soon as I can, other PC (the one I want to put it in) is busy on something else right now which I can`t interupt, will post back as soon as able, hope you are right.

Ray

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bumpkin

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 9:01PM

Can someone give me a link please to download service pack 3 without going round and round in circles and trying to download something else or stopping 90% through it after taking 15mins or not working at all or bringing up a Comodo quarantine message even though I have set it as disabled.

Ray

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iscanut2

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 9:08PM

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bumpkin

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 9:51PM

Thanks iscanut, Your link was helpful I did manage to start a download but it is saying 40mins to complete which is ridiculous for a 545mb download not your fault I know. I will have to wait and see if it works, at least it seems to be the right thing instead of a load of crap that I did not want.

Ra

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bumpkin

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 9:56PM

fruitbat, I have changed the registry entries as your suggestions and will try that after the stupidly slow download mentioned in my last post.

Ray

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woodchip

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 10:33PM

Could be XP but could be a Motherboard BIOS problem

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woodchip

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 10:35PM

Also you may not be able to Use the Drive as is. If the One being Sata 2 is being replaced by a Sata 3

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bumpkin

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 11:43PM

Thanks to all, I have installed sp3 and edited the registry as suggested. Reconnected the drive and it still shows in bios as 40gb. If I try to load windows on it from the XP disk it says 38.something on partition I have not partitioned this or formatted it just took it out of the antistatic bag having earthed myself first.

The drive is sata 2

Ray

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bumpkin

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Posted August 30, 2012 at 11:49PM

Mother board is Hewlett Packard 09F8h if that means anything

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