It sounds like your mate had a FAT32 file system which only handles drive sizes up to 32gb in WinXP. NTFS files systems can handle drives up to 18 billion gb.
I wrote an article on this topic in issue 10 of our newsletter, Ray's Computer Tips (
http://superwin.com/RaysComputerTips/Issue10.htm#tech). It is below.
Tech Tip - Why is Drive Size Smaller?
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This is a common problem. You buy a new large harddrive and install it on your computer, but when you start up your computer, it shows your harddrive as being much smaller than its actual size. What happened?
One of the factors to this problem is that no one foresaw the expansion of harddrive technology to the extent that someday home computers would have 250gb harddrives. Another factor has to do with how big of a number it takes to express the size of the harddrive. A computer is limited in how big of a number it can use. A 16-bit number can only go up to 32767 or 65535 (depending on whether you use negative numbers or not) and a 32-bit number can only go high enough to handle a 4 gb harddrive. Operating systems figure out ways around this but usually their solutions are not that far ahead of the size of harddrives. Because of these factors, if you have a computer that is a few years old, it may not give you all of the space on newer harddrives.
A third factor is the difference in binary and decimal numbers. Some places on your computer like to express the size of your harddrive in binary numbers and some places in decimal numbers. The difference is less than 10 percent. This is normal and there is nothing that you can do about this. Just know that a difference of less than 10 percent may exist.
Please realize that you can still use the harddrive even if the correct size is not detected. You just will not be able to use the entire harddrive, but you will be able to use the part that your computer can handle. Also realize that if you want at a later time to figure out how to enable the rest of the harddrive, enabling it will destroy all of the data on the harddrive.
When it comes to tracking down the problem, there are two general areas that can cause the problem: BIOS and the operating system.
The first place to go is into BIOS (there are certain keys to press when the computer is starting which will get you into BIOS) and have it detect the harddrive. If the LBA option is off, turn it on. If the stated size does not come close to the actual size, your BIOS is probably not big enough to handle it. Some BIOSs can be upgraded with software to handle bigger harddrives. Check with the manufacturer of your BIOS (this is probably the manufacturer of your motherboard and/or computer) to see if this is possible and how it is done.
If BIOS shows a size close to the correct size of the harddrive, then the problem is with the operating system. If you have Windows 95, 98, or ME, first you must check MSDOS. Try typing chkdsk, a space, the drive letter, a colon (:), and the Enter key at a DOS prompt and see if it lists the correct size. If so, MSDOS is OK. If not, you either need to update your MSDOS (WinME's DOS is the most up-to-date) or you need to update your file system (only NTFS can handle bigger sizes).
The last place to check is Windows. The earlier versions of Windows have size limits. WinXP and Win2000 should handle any size, but even these may have problems. If you have an earlier version of Windows, you will need to upgrade to Win2000 or WinXP. If you have Win2000 or WinXP, do a search on Microsoft's website (
http://search.microsoft.com) for an answer or check out these articles:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013 http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305098 Another place to look for information on this is at the harddrive manufacturer's website.
If you can't figure out the problem from this article, ask your local computer repair shop.