Hey I am a new member to the club

I just purchased a computer second hand (Acer Aspire E500) and it worked fine until I formatted the hard drive (which is not the original drive [Hitachi Deskstar T7K250 Model HDT722525DLA380]). When I formatted the drive it shows the 250 GB but when I try to partition using fdisk it shows I only have 49 GB. I can't install windows Xp Pro to partition, I get blue screened and I can't proceed any further. Can you help.

Thanks
Miichael Esposti

Run chkdisk first... then try formatting again, make sure you choose full format and not quick. Also make sure you have deleted any existing partitions.

Also make sure you enable LBA (Large Block Addressing) when you fdisk.

Bah, can't rep scott (gotta spread it around lol)

Good thinking

As mentioned above, check BIOS to check LBA

Using fdisk is an old DOS way of partitioning

What OS are you using and what are you ultimately try to do?

Is there an OS installed now?

Do not use FDisk. Try to get system installed?

Have you reset the BIOS defaults?

Quote:

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I can't install windows Xp Pro to partition

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How did you attempt to install? Are you using original recovery disk or do you have your own XP disk?

Check info below how install from scratch to see if may help

How to Format Drive and Install Windows from Scratch
Geek to Live: How to format your hard drive and install Windows XP from scratch