160gb HD troubles

[ZeikHunter]

ok, this has been plaguing me for some time, and ive lost data because of this as well. heres the deal:

i have 3 160gb drives. 2 western digital & 1 samsung. i formatted them, and gave me a size of 127gb. felt that was kinda gay. anyway, partitionmagic 8 let me resize them to 149gb. that felt about right. but when it gets too full, i start to lose data.

i remember hearing something about the maximum hd size that windows xprecognizes is 130-something gb. (like y'know how win95 dosnt recognize drives over 2gb)

now i just reformatted & installed xpsp2 on my samsung drive and it gave me a size of 149 also. ive got to move data off my other 2 drives to format for a raid array. i dont want o pack too much on my remaining drive because of the data loss issue. can anyone give me a solution to the problem (i was thinking of creating 2 smaller partitions on the drive) or point me to some documentation on why/how this occurs & how the hell i can fix it?

[Winged 2.0]

Burn DVDs or get some externals. But I like the partitioning method. Use that if nothing else.

[Vivi]

Yea possibly make the the hd to partions so you dont lose that 30 GB's

[ZeikHunter]

externals would be nice, so would dvds, but im not made of money. id like to know where exactly windows stops recognizing the disk. i know its 130-something, but...

[Winged 2.0]

Linux doesnt pull that shit on you.
.....Least, I dont think so.

[Vivi]

Nope it doesnt Linux is awsome i might use it next format

[Winged 2.0]

I think linux is awesome. cept the fact that I cant log into my RedHat. :\

[Lord Riff Raff]

Here's how to get around the 137gb limit: http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;303013

However the 127gb limit is Bios based.

[polobunny]

Partition the drive in 2. Your computer doesn't support 48 bit LBA. If it's an external enclosure then your enclosure doesn't support 48-bit LBA.

Edit->Lord Riff Raff, if he has Sp2, he has sp1. Yes? Sp1 supports 48 bit LBA, so if it doesn't work then it's his hardware.

[ZeikHunter]

thanks for the help guys. the last format i had done was to xp clean (no sp) so that explains why it was jacked up when i put it into my new rig. everything should be good now. whats the limit for 48-bit lba?

[polobunny]

A 2 Tb HDD, ~2000gb.

[ZeikHunter]

that include raid arrays?

[Lord Riff Raff]

(2^48) * bits = 32 terabytes

Well at least that's what google says. Funnily enough if you type " (2^48) bits " that's exactly what it comes out with. Oh yeah that's per partition.

[polobunny]

Doh! Lord Riff Raff is right.