Start menu anomalies and drive size

[Bill]

Ok, first of all I have a Dell Optiplex GX100 with 320 MB Ram, 700 MHz
Celeron, Geforce 2 MX400 w/ 64 MB VRAM, SBLive soundcard, XP PRO SP2 fully
updated.
I have 2 seperate issues I was hoping someone could help me with. The first
issue is that seemingly at random, if I click the start button, the FUP list
is completely black and I cannot navigate the start menu at all. If, for
example, I click start and then run, I am asked about creating a shortcut on
my desktop. If I open task manager and end explorer's process and restart it
everything is fine for a while. Any ideas on this one?
The second issue is with my hard drive. I have a 160 GB WD drive. I know
about the 48-bit LBA and followed some steps to enable this. Right now this
drive is in 2 parts. According to the Disk Management console the main
partition which is my system partition, is 127.99 GB and the rest is 21.06
GB currently unallocated. I want to make this drive one partition. I have a
utility to do this for me, because I know Windows cannot do this. My
question about this is, how do I know for sure that the 48-bit LBA is
enabled so I don't run into problems when I merge these 2 partitions and how
can I make it so that if and when I reinstall Windows, 48-bit LBA is enabled
from the get-go so I don't have to jump through these hoops to have this
drive as only one partition? TIA

 

[Mike Fields]

Ok, first of all I have a Dell Optiplex GX100 with 320 MB Ram, 700 MHz
Celeron, Geforce 2 MX400 w/ 64 MB VRAM, SBLive soundcard, XP PRO SP2 fully
updated.
I have 2 seperate issues I was hoping someone could help me with. The first
issue is that seemingly at random, if I click the start button, the FUP list
is completely black and I cannot navigate the start menu at all. If, for
example, I click start and then run, I am asked about creating a shortcut on
my desktop. If I open task manager and end explorer's process and restart it
everything is fine for a while. Any ideas on this one?
The second issue is with my hard drive. I have a 160 GB WD drive. I know
about the 48-bit LBA and followed some steps to enable this. Right now this
drive is in 2 parts. According to the Disk Management console the main
partition which is my system partition, is 127.99 GB and the rest is 21.06
GB currently unallocated. I want to make this drive one partition. I have a
utility to do this for me, because I know Windows cannot do this. My
question about this is, how do I know for sure that the 48-bit LBA is
enabled so I don't run into problems when I merge these 2 partitions and how
can I make it so that if and when I reinstall Windows, 48-bit LBA is enabled
from the get-go so I don't have to jump through these hoops to have this
drive as only one partition? TIA

Actually, with the disk manager console, you can very easily increase
the partition size to use the remainder. It just will not let you shrink a
partition (I assume this is NTFS ?). In the diskmanager console, see
the help for "extend basic volumes" -- there is a command line version and
a windows version. You can't do it to a system volume or boot volume
(I had forgotten that part), but you can do it to any other volume that
has unformatted space immediately following the partition. So, I guess,
I sort of answered your question -- sounds like you are working with
the system volume.

 

[Bill]

Actually, with the disk manager console, you can very easily increase
the partition size to use the remainder. It just will not let you shrink
a
partition (I assume this is NTFS ?). In the diskmanager console, see
the help for "extend basic volumes" -- there is a command line version and
a windows version. You can't do it to a system volume or boot volume
(I had forgotten that part), but you can do it to any other volume that
has unformatted space immediately following the partition. So, I guess,
I sort of answered your question -- sounds like you are working with
the system volume.

Yes it is the system volume I am working with. I have partition magic and
intend to use it to make this all one partition, on this issue I mainly need
to know how I can find out for sure that 48-bit LBA is enabled and how I can
enable it from the get-go if and when I reinstall XP, so that this will be
one partition to begin with. Any ideas on the start menu problem?