Why the 250gb xbox 360 hard drive only have 16gb?

[EddyChu]

Today I purchase a new 250gb xbox hard drive,but when I replaced the old and restar,the hard drive only show 16gb.i had contact the seller,but she said that the problem of me,not the hard drive.
Why the 250gb xbox 360 hard drive only have 16gb? ???I just  replaced didn't have do anything.help!!

[Arakon]

Did you connect it via USB? USB HDDs are limited to 16GB.

[EddyChu]

usb hdds.
then how do i can do now?

[jelle2503]

put it in your Xbox 360? you know in the top?

it looks a little bit like this (not sure):

[neonpolaris]

Yeah, but it's already reformatted now.

[xboxbreaker]

I think you are actually referring to a normal external USB HDD, not a microsoft one. Why would you plug an official one in using USB? Do you have USB>SATA converter?
When you first plugged it in chances are that it was formatted with 250GB FAT32 by a PC for normal external media storage.
You then picked configure for use with xbox option in the new dash, which formatted the drive with a 16GB partition for full 360 usage (like profiles and game saves). This is why the memory is missing.

You need to format the USB drive again in a PC as FAT32 format if you want the xbox to see the full 250gb but the retail 360 dash can only use it for media.

Also note that windows XP and Vista cant format 250gb as FAT32 due to the way it mounts drives, you need to download an app like this: http://tokiwa.qee.jp/EN/Fat32Formatter/