Hard drives and Windows XP

[rfdjr1]

I'm trying to help my daughter by phone with installing a new hard drive in her
computer. It's over the phone as she lives a few states away. She's fairly
computer savvy but we ran into a snag. Here's the deal:

After buying her husband an iPod for Christmas, she found that iTunes needed
WIndows XP. Here computer only had Windows 98. She went out and found a sale on
a Western Digital 250Gb drive, and picked up Windows XP.

Last night she went to install the new hard drive. Apparently, she ran the
Western Digital software that came with it, and got a message saying that some
versions of Windows wouldn't recognize a drive larger than something like 137Gb
without service packs being installed. So she let the WD software set up one
partition of that size.

Then she went to install Windows XP and ran into installation errors. I know
that when I installed Windows XP on a new drive two years ago, I didn't run the
Western Digital software, but just put in the Windows installation disk and that
took care of formatting and partitioning for me. That was only on a 120Gb drive
though, so there were no issues in size recognition.

Could she have made a mistake using the Western Digital software before trying
to install Windows XP? Is the really, in this day and age of large hard drive,
a problem for Windows XP to recognize a large drive?

I told her to try this for now: Using the Western Digital utility disk to write
zeros to the drive and start form scratch. The just boot form the Windows XP
disk and see if that got her past the size limit.

I appreciate any help. I'll be visiting her tomorrow for a couple of days and
would like to help her out. Thanks.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Please read link:
http://snipurl.com/lgmi

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Anna]

I'm trying to help my daughter by phone with installing a new hard drive
in her
computer. It's over the phone as she lives a few states away. She's fairly
computer savvy but we ran into a snag. Here's the deal:

After buying her husband an iPod for Christmas, she found that iTunes
needed
WIndows XP. Here computer only had Windows 98. She went out and found a
sale on
a Western Digital 250Gb drive, and picked up Windows XP.

Last night she went to install the new hard drive. Apparently, she ran the
Western Digital software that came with it, and got a message saying that
some
versions of Windows wouldn't recognize a drive larger than something like
137Gb
without service packs being installed. So she let the WD software set up
one
partition of that size.

Then she went to install Windows XP and ran into installation errors. I
know
that when I installed Windows XP on a new drive two years ago, I didn't
run the
Western Digital software, but just put in the Windows installation disk
and that
took care of formatting and partitioning for me. That was only on a 120Gb
drive
though, so there were no issues in size recognition.

Could she have made a mistake using the Western Digital software before
trying
to install Windows XP? Is the really, in this day and age of large hard
drive,
a problem for Windows XP to recognize a large drive?

I told her to try this for now: Using the Western Digital utility disk to
write
zeros to the drive and start form scratch. The just boot form the Windows
XP
disk and see if that got her past the size limit.

I appreciate any help. I'll be visiting her tomorrow for a couple of days
and
would like to help her out. Thanks.

rfdjr:
As a general proposition, it's best to use the XP installation routine to
partition & format the HD during the XP installation process. It's a
relatively simple & straightforward process and there is no need to use a
third-party partitioning/formatting utility, even when that utility comes
from the manufacturer of the HD one is installing the XP OS on.

As far as the large-capacity hard disk limitation - there are two basic
requirements for the XP OS to recognize the full capacity of hard drives >
137 GB (roughly 127 GB binary)...
1. The motherboard's BIOS must support large-capacity disks, and,
2. The XP OS must include SP1 and/or SP2.

Virtually every motherboard manufactured over the past four years or so
supports large-capacity disks. And for older motherboards there's frequently
a BIOS upgrade from the motherboard's manuf. that provides this support. You
didn't indicate the make/model of your daughter's motherboard, but we'll
assume it supports large-capacity disks unless you indicate differently.

I assume that since your daughter recently purchased a copy of the XP OS,
it's a virtual certainty it includes SP2. So check that out and if it
doesn't, report back, OK?

So check out the above, report back, and we can walk you through the
installation process if you would like. Although I think you have enough
expertise to handle the install process without further ado. My advice at
this point would be to forgo the WD utility and simply use the XP
installation CD to install the OS. During the process, you'll have an
opportunity to delete the 137 GB partition previously created and then
create a partition encompassing the full capacity of the disk or multiple
partitions should you want to go that route. Again, we're assuming that the
requirements 1. & 2. as listed above are present.
Anna