XP Installation

[Guest]

I had a small HD(4.3GB)with windows 98 installed. I searched the minimum
requirements to install XP, which I found to be 1.5GB of hard drive space and
128MB RAM. So, I went ahead and put it to install. Everything went fine until
XP Security Pack 2 was about to finish installing. Now I get a message saying
that I am running low in disk space and that a minimum 200MB is required. I
got confused since I had 4.3 and XP only needed 1.5GB available.
I did not wipped out my HD before installing, I just put the XP cd(full
version, not upgrade). While it was installing it said that another system
was already in and it would overwrite it. I thought XP would be the only OS,
and by the free space in my HD I can see it is not. My question is: Can I
have XP on such small HD ? If I can there is any way around to free up some
space in my HD without having to format and install XP all over again?
Thanks

 

[Bob Harris]

Theoretically XP can run on your drive, if you have little else on the
drive, but pactically you will be much happier if you get a larger drive,
which will also likely be faster. Any PC store that sells had drive should
be able to clone your old drive to a new larger one for a small fee. The
fee may be smaller if you buy the new hard drive at their store. However,
be careful about gettng too large a drive. Your BIOS may no support drives
larger than 32 Gig. Most 40Gig drives have jumpers to reduce ther useable
space to 30 Gig, just in case.

However, here are a few things you can do to save/recover space:

1. In windows explorer, right-click on C:, then properties, then disk
cleanup, then more options, system restore, cleanup. Click yes and/or OK a
few times, then wait for XP to get rid of unnecessary files.

2. From start, help and support, system restore, system restore settings,
highlight C: then click settings. Reduce the size of the restore space,
maybe as low as 200 Meg.

3. Turn off hibernation: Right click on a blank spot on the desktop, screen
saver, power, hibernate. Uncheck the box for hibernation. Click Apply, OK.
Reboot. Look for hyberfil.sys and delete it, if you still have one.

4. Decrease the size of the swapfile (called pagefile.sys): My computer,
right-click, properties, advanced, performance options, advanced, virtual
memory, change. Select min=max=512Meg. If you have more than 256Meg of
real RAM, then pick min=max=256Meg. Reboot and XP wll change the swap file
size. ever try to maually remove pagefile.sys.

Another idea: Most PCs can handle a least two internal hard drives.
Instead of cloning XP and programs to a new master hard drive, you could
install a new slave hard drive and simply cut&paste user files (e.g., JPG,
AVI, DOC) to it. Never try to cut&paste programs or parts of XP itself, as
that will not work and/or will dmaage the programs. If your PC supports
USB, then an external USB hard drive would be a really good alternative to
an internal slave hard drive.