Installing Windows XP Home

[yuthra253]

Okay so I am building a computer for my parents and when I am installing Windows XP Home and it gets to the screen where you create/delete partitions and select one to install the OS on. Instead of the correct amount of memory it only shows 7554 MB and if I turn that into a partition it then goes to the formatting screen. It goes through the formatting like normal but after its complete it says something to the extent of not being able to format that partition, please select a new one. Anyone have any ideas? It's not the drive as I have tried two different one.

[directhex]

what size drive? what disk controller?

[EvilMunky]

i would delete the partition and recreate!

[Dougal]

Low level format the drive if you don't need any of the previous information on it.

You should be able to get the LLF tool from the manufacturer. This gets rid of any redundant files (even formating can leave traces of files)

[EvilMunky]

lol bit extrme - an fdisk would more than do for his purposes - just let the windows setup recreate the partition

[directhex]

we do not have enough information to be suggesting fix-all solutions.

really, wait until you have all the facts.

[yuthra253]

They are both WD Caviar SE one is 80 the other is 160 GB. The 160 works fine in my computer and im sure the 80 would too. I tried partitioning it on my computer and then putting it in the other computer but none of the partitions show up. The thing that is really weird is that both are showing only 7554 MB as the available space. Should I try the low level format as i thought i heard you should use that as a last resort as you can permanantly wreck the drive. Thanks for the help so far!

[directhex]

what disk controller?

[yuthra253]

They are IDE drives and the controller is whichever one would install with windows. Wow maybe this is a dumb questions but for an IDE drive do I still need to install 'third party drivers' ?

[directhex]

well, that would depend on WHAT DISK CONTROLLER THEY'RE ATTACHED TO

[yuthra253]

The motherboard....

[directhex]

which is...

[yuthra253]

sorry. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128285

I have to go for a while but I'll be back on later tonight. Thanks for your patience and help so far.

[nichomach]

It's a weird one; it sounds almost like the old 8GB BIOS limitation, but no modern board should de suffering from that. That said, there IS a specific SiS ATA driver listed at http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Motherboa...S648FXP-RZ.htm ; if that's capable of producing a driver floppy, it MIGHT be worth doing the F6 thing at install.

[directhex]

right. SiS964. shouldn't need any extra drivers, and i had no iddues installing XP onto a board i used to have with an SiS963 southbridge (though that board sucked for other reasons)

[nichomach]

OK, he's tried at least the 160 in another machine without issue. Let's assume for the moment that the drive IS OK (especially in light of the fact that another drive reports the same issue). I'd check for an updated BIOS first; there shouldn't be an 8GB limit, but let's assume there is (boards have shipped with wonky BIOSes before now). Maybe a flash to the latest BIOS would help, along with attempting to install the ATA driver at initial setup. I wouldn't low-level the drives (either of them) without HARD proof that they were at fault and the fact that the 160GB drive seems to work in another machine is contra-indicative of that. If the BIOS flash and use of the SiS driver doesn't work, then we could be looking at a shot IDE controller? If so, sounds like RMA time to me.