Large hard drive and service pack 1

[Guest]

Hi, I have XP pro installed but haven't installed the service pack yet. I
have 2 drives with over 200 gig each only working at 137gig at the moment due
to not having the service pack installed. My main board and BIOS will support
the large drives. I have read in this forum that I will have to install the
service pack for large drive support and have seen on this forum:
"
Installing SP1 after you have installed Windows won't work as the drives
parameters are already set during the install".
Ravickumar M

And have read:

"You need to have XP with either SP1 or SP2 installed. Then do it from
Control Panel - Admin Tools - Computer Management, select Disk
Management and look lower right for the graphic of the drive. Right
click in the Unallocated space and Create Partition"
Alex Nichol MS MVP

Here is the big question, if I install service pack 1 right now, without
doing a clean windows install, will I be able to access the rest of the hard
drives not showing past 137gig?
Thank you

 

[LVTravel]

Yes you will, kind of. You will be able to create a second partition on the
drive and format that partition and use the remainder as a new "disk" drive
letter. If you want the full 200 GB drive as one drive letter you will,
once the SP is installed, use a program such as Partition Magic to stretch
the current partition to the drive's full size.

If you install SP1 or 2 on the computer and stretch the partition, you will
also have to slipstream the SP into the Windows XP CD in case you ever have
to do a repair install of the OS. The repair install won't work with an
original XP cd on a larger than 137 GB drive.

To enable slipstreaming easier go here and get Autostreamer and use it to
create a CD image and then use a CD burning program to burn the replacement
"slipstreamed" CD. You will need the full 266 MB SP\2 or the full SP 1A
before attempting to slipstream. You can get SP2 here
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...BE-3B8E-4F30-8245-9E368D3CDB5A&displaylang=en
or you can order a CD with it installed.

 

[george]

Yes and no.
If you install SP1 or SP2 now you will be able to access the remaining
space, but you'll have to partition. It won't automagically become part of
the existing partition.
In order to do that you will have to get some third party product (Partition
Expert www.acronis.com or Partition Magic www.symantec.com) which will
enable you to resize an existing partition, thereby enlarging your current
partition, so to speak.

hth

george

 

[Guest]

Thank you and after installing the service pack I was able to format the new
space that showed up on the drive using the admin tools.

 

[LVTravel]

Glad I could help. Have a great day.

Thank you and after installing the service pack I was able to format the new
space that showed up on the drive using the admin tools.