How can I get Windows to detect all 250GB of my sata hard drive?

I think you need to get the 'manager' on the job - right click 'My Computer' and find Manage, then Disk Management.

From there, take a look at your partitioning. Maybe you have 127GB Free, or several partitions. My guess is that you have C: and D: am I right?

For a 250 disk, you should have maybe 230GB Free, I think, with NTFS system. I think you should have two partitions on there - if so, make sure you relocate your 'My documents' folder to your D: partition - that way if you ever reinstall windows, you won't have to worry.

You only reinstall what is on C:

My advice - Keep C: small, shrink it a bit, and keep D: as STORAGE partition - keep documents there, keep backups there, copy your drivers there - then whenever windows goes BANG, you can just write over it and reinstall.

Check to see if your drive is formatted as "FAT32" or as "NTFS".

If it is FAT32, it won't recongnize the full capacity.

If that's the case, you would have to convert to NTFS format.

Best google for "convert to NTFS". You don't lose your data but it takes a long time. There is a Microsoft article on what to do.

verify the cable plugged into the decrease back of it and into the motherboard. it would desire to be loose or defective. See if it shows up interior the gadget supervisor and notice if it shows up interior the disk administration window.