Mobo: ASUS P4P800-E Deluxe
CPU: P4 3.0GHZ 800FBUS 1MB CACHE
HDD: Seagate IDE 120GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB Cache
    Maxtor Ultra series IDE 200GB, 7200RPM, 8 MB Cache
    Seagate Barracuda SATA 80 GB, 7200RPM, 8 MB Cache
RAM: Corsair 1 GB (2 x 512) DDR PC3200
VID: ATI All in Wonder Pro 9800
DVD: DVD Rom, and NEC 3520A 16x Dual Layer DVD
Case: Antec P160, Antec True550 power supply
OS:  XP Professional w/SP2

Conifigured as:

Primary IDE (Master): 120GB HDD
Primary IDE (Slave): DVD Rom
Sec. IDE (Master): DVD Burner
Sec. IDE (Slave): 200GB HDD

I assembled everything and it POSTed fine.  A few adjustments and the BIOS
recognized everything.  ;D
I know, I know, I should have only hooked up one drive and the DVD Rom, and
installed the other drives later. :-[

With FDISK I attempted to partition the 120GB drive.  It recognized only 114GB.  So, I figured
maybe Windows would recognize the entire volume.  Nope same thing.  I went back to FDISK and it
now reads as follows:

Disk    Drive     MBYTES    FREE     USAGE
1                             11447     11144       71
                 %2         194         47419     4474
                 %3         7            63177     6317

What have I done?  Is this bad?  Can I fix it? If I disconnect the Sec. IDE and the SATA drive can I start over from there?
How do I get the system to recognize all 120GB?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Dartacus

Manufacturers report based on binary to inflate size advertised.

Fdisk reports based on decimal.

See here for discussion:

FDisk Instructions

Your results look about right.

Interesting.  My Maxtor 200GB drive actually is over 200GB.  Something I'll have to look out for in the future.

I disconnected the 200GB and the 120GB and started partitioning the 80GB SATA drive, since that is where I actually want to install Windows.   I started FDISK and it indicated the drive had 76GB of space.  I created a primary partition of 4 GB (after reading RAD's guide to partioning), leaving me with approx. 72GB.  I created the Ext. Partition of 15GB and it then indicated that I only had 15GB left for logical.

I then backed it out and started over, changing my values, but after creating the Ext. Partition (25GB), it left me with 25GB for logical.  The only way to use the entire 76GB, and have the 4GB primary, is to partition 36GB EXT, 36GB Logical.

What can I do to partition the way I want?

Side question:  How do you determine which partition to make active?

Dartacus

Logical drives are created within an Extended partition--so if you want the balance of the HDD after the 4 GB primary to be in the Extended partition, you would make the entire remaining space an Extended partition, and then create the logical drive within that space using the full amount of space.

If you want additional logical drives within the Extended partition, you can make as many as you wish, and any size, up to the amount of space available.

Usually, the active partition is a primary partition with the boot files for your OS.

How did I miss that?  Now I really feel like a nooB  :-[
Thanks for the help.  If I have any further problems, I will be sure to continue consulting this forum.

I'll also pitch in where I can in offering help.

Quote:

Manufacturers report based on binary to inflate size advertised. Fdisk reports based on decimal.

I believe it's the other way around:

Assuming that the "Seagate IDE 120GB, 7200 RPM, 8MB Cache" is a "7200.7+", then it has 234,441,648 sectors x 512 bytes = 120,034,123,776 bytes and Seagate lables the HDD 120 GB (decimal).

FDISK and the Operating System see the size binary: 1 kB = 1,024 (2^10) bytes, 1 MB = 1,048,576 (2^20) bytes and 1 GB = 1,073,741,824 (2^30) bytes.

120,034,123,776 / 1,024 = 117,220,824 kB

120,034,123,776 / 1,048,576 = ~114,473 MB

120,034,123,776 / 1,073,741,824 = ~111.790 GB

Christer

Christer

Opps!

Thanks for catching that--and the excellent explanation!

(See my signature line!!!  ;) )

Things like that have a tendency to slip ...... :-X ...... and I had just had my morning cup of coffee and was wide awake ...... ::) ...... for once!

Christer