Hi

I have a Seagate 320GB hard drive, but it will not boot.

I formatted and installed Windows XP on it. The windows installation could only recognize it as a 132GB harddrive, but after completing the installation, I updated the BIOS to support drives larger than 132GB.

This worked fine, I created a new partition so I could fully use the 320GB.
After about 1 year I decided to format the partition where I have Windows XP.

So i reboot the computer and boot it from the windows xp cd.
When I get to the point of selecting which partition I want to install windows on, I notice that only one partition is displayed. A 132GB partition. This looks wrong so i quit the menu.

Next time I try to boot from the hard drive, nothing happens. Only thing i get is a blinking cursor but windows does not start. WHAT HAPPENED? Is the MBR or partition table smashed..and how could this have happened? I tried using repair console in Windows but I could not access the drive.

Please, can anyone help? How can i fix this problem wihtout losing my partitions and files.

ONLY XP SP2 can see drives larger then 137gigs.

Google "Slip Streaming" which a method of combining SP2 into an XP or XP1 cd.

Thanks for replying!

So next time I need to reinstall windows I should use a Windows XP cd with integrated service pack 2?
Then the installation will be able to recognize my drive as a 320GB?

But can you explain what happened to my hard drive?
I mean, only thing i did was to reboot the computer and begin the windows installation. I accepted the terms and agreement but when I got to the menu where I should chose to use Recovery, Create partition or cancel i chose Cancel. After this I could no longer boot from my hard drive.

I tried moving my harddisk to another computer and have it as secondary hard drive.
This computer has Windows XP with SP2 but it only recognizes my hard drive as 132GB unpartitioned:-((

It does sound like the MBR got messed up...