Just ghost drive image?

[srwven]

I have my os on a samsung 250gb PATA. I never noticed but it is only recognized as 100gb. I would like to keep everything I have on the samsung. Should I just ghost the drive onto my other hard drive, then reformat and run the utility to get the entire drive (I don't know yet if it is my bios or what)? Or is there a way to get the rest of the drive without screwing up the already formatted portion (with the os)?

[tuskenraider]

Are you running XP SP1 or higher? Before SP1, Windows could only recognize a drive as large as 137GB, though that doesn't explain why you see only 100GB. I'd go into Disk Management and see if you accidently partitioned it to 100GB and have the rest of the disk unpartitioned. Either way, I'd ghost an image of the samsung before doing anything because whatever solution you need to do, it will involve repartitioning or reformatting and you will lose all it's data.

[Trap05]

Agreed. Ghost it first then screw around with the drive.

[srwven]

Thanks for the help. I am running XP SP2. The samsung was bought about 9 months ago to replace a dead drive. When I formatted the drive I remember formatting it to the maximum choice it gave me which I think ended up being 100gb. That was using the Windows XP Home disk that doesn't have the service packs installed(I have to install those separately once windows is up). So I am assuming that is why? I haven't updated my board's bios in a year or two. So I will ghost regardless, then should I reformat using non-windows based DOS (boot disk) to see if I get the entire drive?

[tuskenraider]

That was using the Windows XP Home disk that doesn't have the service packs installed(I have to install those separately once windows is up). So I am assuming that is why? Bingo!
then should I reformat using non-windows based DOS (boot disk) to see if I get the entire drive?I would think Samsung has a downloadable drive utility program to properly format the drive or the manufacturer of the drive you plan to ghost to(though the software is free, you usually have to have that brand drive installed to use the program). Isn't necessary to update your BIOS, though I like to have the current one myself. Use Samsung's drive tools to reformat the whole thing and reimage back to the full partition you created.

You can download a program called nLite, that will allow you to slipstream the service packs into the Windows install and then reburn the install files to a CD for future installs.