Not recognizing most of HDD

I would suggest starting over from scratch and perform the installation
of Windows XP correctly:

The Windows XP CD is bootable and contains all the tools necessary
to partition and format your drive. Follow this procedure and allow
Windows XP to partition and format your drive:

NOTE: It would be best to physically disconnect all your peripheral hardware
devices, except the monitor, mouse and keyboard, before installing XP.

1. Open your BIOS and set your "CD Drive as the first bootable device".

===> Accessing Motherboard BIOS
===> http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

2. Insert your Windows XP CD in the CD Drive and reboot your computer.
3. You'll see a message to boot to the CD....follow the instructions.
4. The setup menu will appear and you should elect to delete all the existing
Windows partitions, then create a new partition, then format the primary
partition (preferably NTFS) and proceed to install Windows XP.

5. Clean Install Windows XP
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

[Courtesy of Michael Stevens, MS-MVP]

6. ==> Immediately after installing Windows XP, turn on XP's Firewall.
==> http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

7. After Windows XP is installed, visit the Windows Update website
and download the available "Critical Updates".

8. After installing the critical updates, be sure and visit the support website
of the manufacturer of the computer to download and install any
available Windows XP compatible drivers, such as video adapter
and audio drivers.

9. If you happen to run into any installation difficulties, use the following resources:

How to Troubleshoot Windows XP Problems During Installation
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;310064

Troubleshooting Windows XP Setup
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_setup.htm

[Courtesy of MS-MVP Kelly Theriot]

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Justin Whittenton" <anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message:
news:1296e01c3f698$525749e0$a001280a@phx.gbl...

| When I had Win98SE installed on my system, the OS
| recognized all 80GB of my Maxtor 5400RPM drive. After
| installing WinXP, the system only recognizes 30GB of the
| same drive. I have tried both Home and Professional
| editions of XP and tried low-level formatting prior to
| install. There is only one partition on the drive.
| During the setup of XP, the setup program only recognizes
| teh 30GB. I currently am running XP Home and would like
| to keep it that way. Does anyone have a solution to this
| problem?

Justin Whittenton wrote:

> When I had Win98SE installed on my system, the OS
> recognized all 80GB of my Maxtor 5400RPM drive. After
> installing WinXP, the system only recognizes 30GB of the
> same drive. I have tried both Home and Professional
> editions of XP and tried low-level formatting prior to
> install. There is only one partition on the drive.
> During the setup of XP, the setup program only recognizes
> teh 30GB. I currently am running XP Home and would like
> to keep it that way. Does anyone have a solution to this
> problem?

The XP CD will not initialize a FAT32 part. bigger than 32GB.
Your choices are:

1. Use NTFS instead of FAT (my first choice)
2. Boot from a W9x FD and use the W9x utilities to init. a single
80GB part. and FORMAT it for FAT32. XP will use large FAT
parts, even though the XP CD refuses to create them.
3. Partition the HD into sub-32GB parts, and use FAT if you must.
--
Cheers, Bob