# 250gb hdd only showing 128gb? **URL:** \ **Category:** NYSpeed Off Topic\ **Created:** [February 19, 2009, 8:31pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348 "2009-02-19T20:31:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![chino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bcef8e/32.png) [@chino](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/chino)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:07am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/21 "2009-02-20T06:07:36Z")
for the OSX install it may not be detecting your controller card properly or something, but if the linux install is not seeing it either i’m not entirely sure - one thing to note make sure as you’re going through formatting and partitioning you don’t end up fucking up your boot sector. when flip flopping between win/linux installs its easy to accidentally the whole thing and it’s annoying to repair. ---
**Author:** ![boardjnky4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:15am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/22 "2009-02-20T06:15:36Z")
yeah, I am willing to bet there is a compatibility issue with the sata controller on your motherboard. ---
**Author:** ![boxxa](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/boxxa/32/5045_2.png) [@boxxa](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boxxa)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:46am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/23 "2009-02-20T06:46:03Z")
> [@boardjnky4](#): > > yeah, I am willing to bet there is a compatibility issue with the sata controller on your motherboard. Ya that size seems like its related to something with your BIOS or compatibility. ---
**Author:** ![Fry](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/fry/32/7284_2.png) [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:56am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/24 "2009-02-20T06:56:35Z")
I tried so much shit that it’s hard remember what sequence shit happened in, but I distinctly remember seeing the little apple hard drive symbol labeled 233 gb, same with Ubuntu. At some point during my adventures they both saw 250gb. I really think billy was on the right track with there being like a file system present or something. I may pop in the apple disk again tonight just to see if it sees 250gb now that windows slapped the drive around. Still doesn’t explain why my OSX install takes so long and fails, but that’s a whole other can of worms that I may or may not open. ---
**Author:** ![Fry](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/fry/32/7284_2.png) [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 6:56am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/25 "2009-02-20T06:56:52Z")
> [@boxxa](#): > > Ya that size seems like its related to something with your BIOS or compatibility. BIOS shows the correct disk size. ---
**Author:** ![chino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bcef8e/32.png) [@chino](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/chino)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:10am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/26 "2009-02-20T07:10:45Z")
> [@Fry](#): > > I tried so much shit that it’s hard remember what sequence shit happened in, but I distinctly remember seeing the little apple hard drive symbol labeled 233 gb, same with Ubuntu. At some point during my adventures they both saw 250gb. I really think billy was on the right track with there being like a file system present or something. I may pop in the apple disk again tonight just to see if it sees 250gb now that windows slapped the drive around. > > Still doesn’t explain why my OSX install takes so long and fails, but that’s a whole other can of worms that I may or may not open. ubuntu installer would see a NTFS or FAT partition though and give you the ability to remove it. Are you doing the auto configure partitioning or manual? ---
**Author:** ![Fry](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/fry/32/7284_2.png) [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:22am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/27 "2009-02-20T07:22:03Z")
Manual. Ubuntu doesn’t speak HFS+, so that may have something to do with it. I dunno. It really might be PEBCAK. I remembered something. I installed my drive on what was labeled SATA channel 0 on the motherboard, but it didn’t show up in OSX at all, only my extra parallel ata drive (80gb, fat32.) So I checked the bios, and the SATA drive was showing up under IDE channel 3 and PATA was IDE channel zero. So I unplugged the PATA drive and no change. So I moved the SATA cable around until it recognized in the bios as being on IDE channel 1, since apparently the PATA port is IDE channel zero. At that point, OSX finally saw the 250gb disk so I hit next and began the install (never used disk utility to set partitions, figured it would be done automatically.) The install crashed. From there things get a little fuzzy because I started trying a bunch of different shit. I’ll probably play some more tonight, out of curiosity, but I’m starting to think it’s a 48 bit LBA driver issue with both OSX and Linux. I can’t say for sure that either one ever saw a \>128gb partition, though I’m pretty sure both saw at some point a \>128gb disk. ---
**Author:** ![itsJim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@itsJim](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/itsJim)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:36am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/28 "2009-02-20T07:36:01Z")
Neither OS should have a problem with that drive. Fuck OSX and just install Ubuntu - you can thank me later. ---
**Author:** ![Fry](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/fry/32/7284_2.png) [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:37am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/29 "2009-02-20T07:37:24Z")
^Did you miss the part where Ubuntu sucked just as hard? 😛 Well, no Ubuntu would at least install properly I’m sure. But I like Mandriva better anyway. ---
**Author:** ![itsJim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@itsJim](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/itsJim)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:53am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/30 "2009-02-20T07:53:01Z")
If your having this problem with multiple operating systems it is probably a BIOS issue or possibly a hard drive issue. See if you can find an update for your motherboard. ---
**Author:** ![Fry](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/fry/32/7284_2.png) [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 7:55am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/31 "2009-02-20T07:55:03Z")
^Wouldn’t the fact that it shows up as the right size in the bios suggest that the BIOS is fine? Or could there be a problem with how the bios is talking to the OS? ---
**Author:** ![boardjnky4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 9:09am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/32 "2009-02-20T09:09:46Z")
The OS X install likely failed due to sata controller incompatibility. At some point, there may have been an issue with formatting the drive to a certain file system during the OS X install. That is likely what caused the erroneous file size to show up. ---
**Author:** ![Fry](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/fry/32/7284_2.png) [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 10:26am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/33 "2009-02-20T10:26:16Z")
Something just dawned on me: WHY THE FUCK DO I WANT A HOMEMADE MAC? :lol: I get so caught up in doing things just to see if I can make it work. At one point I had Solaris running on my desktop in college. XP 64 Pro Corp installed fine, no driver issues, no registration, updates work fine. I’ll stick with that. ---
**Author:** ![boardjnky4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 10:27am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/34 "2009-02-20T10:27:14Z")
Why a homemade mac? All of the awesomeness, less of the price and faggy white color lol. ---
**Author:** ![Fry](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/fry/32/7284_2.png) [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 10:29am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/35 "2009-02-20T10:29:30Z")
404 awesomeness not found. I really enjoy things like “delete” and “cut” and “maximize” and a taskbar. ---
**Author:** ![boardjnky4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/96bed5/32.png) [@boardjnky4](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boardjnky4)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 10:31am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/36 "2009-02-20T10:31:37Z")
you’re just afraid of change, it’s ok. Continue on. ---
**Author:** ![Fry](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/fry/32/7284_2.png) [@Fry](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/Fry)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 10:33am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/37 "2009-02-20T10:33:30Z")
😛 ---
**Author:** ![boxxa](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex034/user_avatar/forums.speedlife.net/boxxa/32/5045_2.png) [@boxxa](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/boxxa)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2009, 10:54am UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/38 "2009-02-20T10:54:44Z")
> [@Fry](#): > > 404 awesomeness not found. I really enjoy things like “delete” and “cut” and “maximize” and a taskbar. and right click ---
**Author:** ![itsJim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@itsJim](https://forums.speedlife.net/u/itsJim)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348/39 "2009-02-21T14:18:05Z")
And no hardware compatibility! SCORE! [Previous page](https://forums.speedlife.net/t/250gb-hdd-only-showing-128gb/63348.md?page=1)