Thanks, Barry. I'll try that. Would you know why it was possible with the
first drive but not with the second to extend the primry partition into the
unallocated space? I can remember only one difference: I had installed ONLY
XP (the CD had SP1), had updated it completely, including SP2, even to the
extent of calling Microsoft to validate the installation. It was drop-dead
easy the first time.
Anna, when I installed the first and the second drive, in both cases, I
used
the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools from the CD that came with the
drives and booted from the CD. The drives were just the way they left the
factory, pristine. I had no choice - both times - but to accept that the
HD
would show only 137 GB. XP, then as now sees that the drive does indeed
have
~232 GB, but now recognizes only the 137 GB as usable space. The first
drive
- after the successful "extending" into the unallocated space - had one
232
GB partition. I want to repeat my success but, somehow, have been foiled
and
do not know why.
(And Merry later adds...)
Rich, I changed the Virtual Memory to Zero, rebooted into Safe Mode, and
then
tried extending the primary partition into the unallocated space. No luck.
same message. Is there a requirement for the exact configuration of the
unused space? It would seem it should be formatted as NTFS (It was, when I
earlier created a primary partition out of it but now is simply unallocated
space).
Merry:
PLEASE, PLEASE -- forget about these esoteric machinations you're going
through, including this business of modifying your virtual memory and those
other processes you previously undertook. None of this is desirably nor
necessary and I fear you'll create further problems in the future by so
pursuing these actions.
This is relatively simple business...
As I've stated previously, if your motherboard's BIOS supports
large-capacity disks and your XP OS contains SP1 and/or SP2 at the time of
the installation of that disk, then the full capacity of that disk will be
recognized by the XP OS. And that's it. There's nothing mysterious about
this process; you needn't make any registry modifications nor invoke obscure
DOS-like commands nor tamper with "virtual memory" nor modify "page file"
settings, etc., etc.
It's hard, if not impossible, to tell what went wrong the second time when
you installed XP on the new replacement HD and you ran up against the 137 GB
barrier. I note you said you used the WD Data Lifeguard Tools utility
presumably to partition & format your new drive. I take it you did this
prior to the installation of the XP OS.
In the case of installing XP, we encourage users to use the built-in XP
mechanism to partition/format the HD during the XP install routine. We do
NOT recommend any third-party utility (including the one from the HD
manufacturer) to do this. In virtually every case, there is simply no need
to use a third-party utility to carry out this operation. The XP
partitioning/formatting process during the installation routine is perfectly
fine. Simply stated, it does the job.
If you need to partition/format a large-capacity HD that you're installing
as a secondary HD, then use the XP Disk Management utility (Start >
right-click My Computer > Manage > Computer Management > Disk Management).
As a final note, please understand that in all this we're assuming that the
HD in question is non-defective and is properly connected/configured in that
it's correctly jumpered and securely connected with a non-defective 80-wire
IDE cable.
Anna
