I just bought a Seagate 200GB hdd and installed on my win xp, when I boot into windows and use the discwizard from seagate to format into two partitions, I think it will be logical partitions, after formatting and when I open My Computer the two drives could not be found, and when I open the device manager and see if windows detects the drive or not and I see the drive is attached to my primary slave which is the correct channel.

then I use "Seatools" (a boot disc utility from Seagate) to boot up the computer and test the hard disk and the physical test is all passed, only the file structure test is failed...

and now I try another method is that I format the hdd into one boot partition by using the discwizard again. now the hdd is appeared in my computer, but unformatted, then i choose to format into NTFS and windows said this drive cannot be formatted (format unsucessfully), and the test again the result is file structure test failed.

I have upgraded to SP1 with latest updates, and I asked ASUS that my mb supports 48-bit LBA.
and the hdd I bought b4 already have these kind of problems, I thought was hardware failure, but I exchanged another one and the problem happens again, so I think the problem was my OS.

:confused: So could anyone please help me? thanks!!! :confused:

See if this helps:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=309000

I would zero out the drive, remove it, then go here (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013) and complete that. Then put the drive back in and format it however you like.

But I did it another way. I used a pci ide controller card and using the cards BIOS, I made partitions, then I removed the card and put the drive as slave on the primary partition.

I think a partition manager could also do what you need.

I already running on Win XP SP1 with latest updates and latest ver of atapi.sys, just windows could not format the drive, in My Computer it says the drive is not formatted and ask me to format, but everytime the format is unsucessful...

would it be sth do with IRQ or anything? because my pc has lots of "stuff" inside:
IDE RAID on PCI that boots win xp, a 120GB IDE hdd on primary master for storage, two optical drives, I am just adding another 200GB to it but seems my computer is stopping me to do...

IDE RAID?

If you have a RAID controller you may be able to put the drive on that and make 2 partitions of less than 137 gigs IF it sees the entire drive. Then return you arrangement to the way you want and you will be able to format the partitions properly.

There's 2 reasons you are having trouble. One is XP and the other is XP.
1: There is a size limitation to formatting drives in NTFS and from within XP, that is your only choice.
2:XP's registry is set with a 137 gigs limit and the link above, if done properly, will overcome that.

Pick a method from my post above and do that because at this time they are the only ways I know of to accomplish the task. I think there may be some but they are more complicated.

A cheap pci controller card is easy but not free. A card will cost you around $20 delivered. Plus or minus depending on quality and features.

There is a size limitation to formatting drives in NTFS and from within XP, that is your only choice. Sorry but the limitation is with FAT for which there is a 32GB limit using WinXP's formatter. NTFS partitions can, for all intents and purposes, be as large as you and XP like.

You could try BootIt-NG from http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html Download, make the CD or the Floppy, boot to it, cancel setup and go into maintenace mode. Delete any existing partitions and recreate the ones you want.

If that works then its likely that something is wrong with your own Windows installation and it would be tempting to run a repair installation. If there are still file system errors then I would consider returning the drive under warranty.

Thanks guys for all the helps!

I know what is happening now, Seagate support have given me a great help, it was just some stupid problems:

The problem is that Intel Application Accelerator in installed in my system and this have been known to cause issues with formatting a drive over 137GB, replied my support from Seagate!

After I uninstall the Intel Application Accelerator everything works fine!
So anyone is having trouble with large drives please uninstall Intel Applicatioin Accelerator or Intel Storage Manager

Thanks for replying. Perhaps you could tell us exactly what Seagate told you since as long as the partitions were made using a third party partitioner it would appear from the intel blurb that there shouldn't be a problem with such large HDDs.

http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/iaa/sb/cs-009299.htm