CJM wrote:
> I've just replaced my old HDD with a new 250GB Maxtor DiamondMax 10
> SATA drive (in a Dell 4600). The BIOS correctly reports that the
> drive is 250Gb, and when the drive arrived it was pre-formatted as a
> 250Gb FAT32 partition, so it appears the drive is working OK.
> However, when I deleted the partition and tried to create a new NTFS
> partition using the XP setup program, it reported the maximum
> partition size I could create was 128GB...

Redo it using Disk Management.
Right click on My Computer, Manage and go to \Storage\Disk Management
Right click on the drive to delete the existing partitions and to make new
ones.
Format and be sure it has a drive letter.

>
> I created an 80Gb partition, thinking that I could utilize the
> remainder of the drive (170GB) using Partition Manager but Partition
> Manager reckons it can only see the same 128GB... (80Gb + 48Gb
> unallocated).
> I'm running some diagnostic software on the new drive as I write, but
> it appears to be OK.
>
> So why cant the windows setup program and windows itself see the full
> 250 GB?

The setup program from where? CD? 6-floppy set of diskettes? Must be a
pre-SP1 version.

--
They call it PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken.