300GB hdd problem

M

Mur21

New Member
I just bought a maxtor 300gb hdd and i tried to install it as the master drive in my computer. I attached the wires and started the computer with the boot cd in the drive, MaxBlast 4. The boot cd allowed me to separate the drive into 3 partitions about 100gb each give or take, it then said the drive was ready. So I restarted the computer with the windows xp installation cd in the drive but when it detected the partitions it only read 1 at 132gb give or take. I ran through the winXP installation cd and finished but when i restarted the computer with out windows cd in the drive it kept restarting itself and if I restarted it with the winXP cd and selected the drive again it said that it does not recomend installing 2 operating systems on the drive.

What should I do?
 
For one get rid of that MaxBlast whatever and boot from the XP disk to choose the install as you would normally without it. XP can be configured to create custom sized partitions while many use Partition Magic or some software similar for this. The manual method allows the creation of the primary partition at this time that you can limit down from roughly 288gb that would be seen normally to a 100gb primary.

You first want to delete any partitions the XP installer fails to detect made by MaxBlast and then proceed allowing XP to create a new custom primary to install on. Once Windows is up and running(hopefully all goes well after) you can use the Disk Manangement section found in Computer Management under Administrative Tools in the Control Panel to create one or more partitions at that point(got that out in one,,,). You want XP to detect the drive with it's own hardware detection process to have a good installation. Give this a try to see if you can get XP to go on.
 
I can't get windows up and running. when i run the boot disc it detects a partition of 132 or somthing like that and thats it (it's a 300gb hdd). Should I delete that 132?

I didn't before and selected to install the winXP on it. Then when it finished my computer would reset and load up the windows setup screen again, the blue screen not the splash screen, so i tried going to setup and booting from the HDD first. When I did that it still didn't load the splash screen it would get an error and keep reseting the computer.
 
If you are looking to use the drive with only one partition you would delete that when detected by the XP installer and proceed after to have a new one that covers the entire drive space used as a single large primary. If you were looking to have a backup partition for storing files you would get rid of the 132gb anyway to insure a fresh custom sized one without issues. XP would then go right on that. Later you would create the secondary through Disk Management.

The jump to boot off of the hard drive at this point is rather pointless since you are trying to let XP partition, format, and install itself on a totally new partition to avoid the problems you are seeing. Once all installation files have been copied to the drive you then boot from the drive on the next restart to get the installer going. If all goes well Windows is up and running in a little over 30min. on old systems and under a 1/2hr. on a newer one. With the system restarts seen upon trying to finish the installation on the existing 132gb it could spell a problem other then the condition of that. Upon trying to install XP on a new drive lately the installer didn't even see the drive while the bios did. Besides replacing the original battery on the board trying to reseat the new HSF again and again still sees an overheating issue.
(With the cpu running above average while not being near the max temp Windows will still lock and the thermal paste is slipping away from the top of the chip itself. I suspect the HSF mounts are raised up leaving a slightly larger gap between cpu chip and copper bottom of the Zalman cooler used then should be there.)
 
deleting the partition and having winXP recreate one worked. I then had the hdd boot first and got the splash screen to load up. My computer is now installing winXP. Thanks for the help

one last question will I be able to create other partitions in disc management once the winXP is fully installed so I can use all 300gb?
 
The news that staying strictly with the XP installer to create a good partition for XP to install to is certainly good news. I suspected that the MaxBlaster nonsense was the problem and you just confirmed that. If you had planned to have a storage partition along with a smaller primary rather then just having one larger single partition drive here's your chance to go into the Control Panel and look for the Adminstrative Tools icon. That will open a new window where the next icon will be the Computer Management. Then you have one last item to click on the left side of that screen called the Disk Management.

Note that now you will see the hard drive in an upper window with a white background and the lower portion will a greyed out area. The grey area revealed the existing drives and can be ignored here. You will want to right click on the drive listing in the upper window and choose the create new partition option to use the remaining drive space for a single storage partiton even though you still have room to create more then one. Unless you are planning to multiboot a second version of Windows(like trying out Vista due to being newer) a large working partition can now be made for storage and backing up important data in the event the primary gets goofed somehow. Simply rght click on the drive listed in the upper window to choose the create and format new partition option. The Disk Management will do both create the secondary and perform a quick format at that time.
Read the information that appears for each popup anyway to verify things. Once formatted you will have two working partitions. Once you do this a few times the proccess does get a little easier as long as everything else is in working order.
 
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