Weird SATA problem, shows up fine, boots, cant boot solo

Hello so i just got a SATA drive for my PC as my old one died.



Now i have 2 problems, the 1st is when i went to format it using the windows XP disk it only detected 108 gig of the 320gb drive and wouldn't let me make a partition out of 320gb, only out of 108gb... which is annoying!



and the 2nd problem is i can't boot my SATA without another drive plugged in. If i boot with the other drive it all works fine and i can boot XP up from the sata, but i need the other drive in or it says disk failure



I tried using the m2ne-sli DOS prompt, but it won't let me set the SATA as the active partition.



I have tried diff dos settings, but theres not alot to play with as it's all auto.



Any suggestions to either (i don't want to lose data :S)

Assuming that the other drive is ide that is where the boot information was placed when going to OS the new sata there. To see a sata or any other drive setup as a standalone you first unplug any other drive. That drive also has set as the default boot device in the bios once the Windows setup files are copied onto it from the installation disk.

For determining why only 108gb is being seen you may have to use a 3rd party drive partitioning tool like Partition Magic or the free Linux tool GParted live for cd. If the drive has no defects the drive may not be a 320gb model meaning you received the wrong size. That sounds more like what would be seen on a 120gb if no other information is already on the drive.

The boot problem is a formatting problem. Reinstalling Windows is the easiest fix. Delete the partition, create a new one, format and reinstall. That fixes it. And yeah, it's annoying.

Sounds like you got a old XP cd, just Slipstream SP2 to your CD and use the burned slipstreamed copy to install plus you wont have to install SP2 anymore if you have to reinstall again at a later date. Like said above it would be better do a clean install.