Rhino said:
I know that my BIOS supports 48-bit LBA; I've checked with the
manufacturer's website.
My XP CD contains XP without any service packs on it, therefore it _is_ XP
prior to SP1. How do I coax it to format a 1 terabyte drive when this
support does not exist for XP prior to SP1?
Unless I'm missing something, XP is going to want to format my drive
_BEFORE_ I can install SP1 but my drive will have already been formatted
by then. But since I formatted it with XP Pro before SP1 was applied, I
will only have formatted the first 127 GB.
Or am I just imagining a problem here? Will I format only the first 127 GB
when I install XP, then do my Windows updates, including SP1, then be able
to see and format the rest of the hard drive? I'm not quite clear whether
the initial formatting done by XP prior to the installation of SP1 will
leave the drive accessible so that I can format the rest after adding SP1.
As noted above, I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to the part of the
drive beyond the first 127 GB after I install SP1. Can you clarify this,
please?
Rhino:
As you have heard, all things considered, it would be best if you would
combine SP2 with your present XP installation CD (that contains no Service
Pack), using the "slipstream" process that has generally been described to
you. There are various techniques that can be used to "slipstream" a SP so
that it's integrated into the XP installation CD. One popular program is the
NLite program which has already been mentioned to you.
The program we prefer (also a "freebie") is the Autostreamer program which I
believe has already been recommended to you. We find that program just about
the easiest to use and it seems to be quite reliable. There are some
step-by-step instructions for using Autostreamer at...
http://www.webtree.ca/windowsxp/slipstream.htm
and,
http://www.simplyguides.net/guides/using_autostreamer/using_autostreamer.shtml
I did want to point out however, that there's no great harm in installing XP
on your current (intended?) large-capacity HDD using your current XP
installation CD that doesn't contain any of the Service Packs. What will
happen in that instance is that the system will recognize only about 127
GB - 137 GB of your HDD. When you subsequently install SP2 - the file is
available for download from MS - (there's really no point in slipstreaming
SP1) the full-capacity of your HDD will be recognized, however, the
remaining disk space above & beyond that original 127 GB (or up to 137 GB)
will be considered "unallocated space", i.e, disk space that you can
subsequently partition/format using XP's Disk Management utility. But note
it will be a second partition (at the least) on the disk. If you can live
with that or desire to multi-partition that unallocated disk space, then
fine. But if you desire a single partition encompassing the entire disk
space of your large- capacity HDD, then slipstreaming would be the way to
go.
After you've worked with SP2 for a little while and all goes well, i.e., no
problems with the boot process and the machine functions without any
problems, then install SP3.
Anna