Am I Screwed?

K

kittysacattack

New Member
I finished builiding my computer, and didn't realize until i started transfering files onto it that i was only gettting 137gb out of my 320gb hd. I read the instructions and it said during OS setup, i was supposed to press F6 when asked to install a third party SCSI or RAID driver, then insert the cd for the HD.

1. do i have to install windows again, or can i fix this
2. do i need 2 cd drives, one for the os and one for the hd

any help is greatly appreciated, thanks.
 
You made the primary too small when using the XP installer for that apparently. You should be seeing far closer to 290gb after partitioning and formatting.

1)You can use a 3rd party tool like the free Linux live for cd-r GParted to expand the primary. Usually you won't need to see Windows reinstalled for that alone.

2)Since XP is already on you never needed a driver floppy for sata drivers to begin with. The XP installer readily detected the drive during the installation when selecting the drive/partition for Windows to be installed on.
 
You can use a 3rd party tool like the free Linux live for cd-r GParted to expand the primary. Usually you won't need to see Windows reinstalled for that alone. [/QUOTE said:
I am not sure how to do this, is it possible you could explain how this can be carried out. Thank you very much for the information. This is good news.
Click to expand...
 
The best way to learn how to use the free Linux tool is to review the instructions including screen shots at http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larry/generalities/gparted.htm

You will need a cd writer or dvd burner when going to download the iso type disk image that you burn to a blank cd-r not rw disk. While the latest releases seem to able to resize NTFS type partitions according to some there are presently only two platform independent releases namely the 0.3.3.0 and 0.3.2.0 live for cd versions found on the download page at http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=173828

Since you have to scroll down the page there and click on the (+) sign next to the releases to see what it shows under the architecture column on the right side of the page here's a screen show to show those two.



The free version of BurnOn, http://www.burnworld.com/burnoncddvd/ or the free burning program Deep Burner, http://www.snapfiles.com/get/deepburner.html work well for seeing that done.

Unfortunately the servers must be done for the moment at the home page for Deep Burner with an alternate link also found at http://www.download.com/DeepBurner-Free/3000-2646_4-10250994.html

Once you have the iso burned to disk you simply boot up with it as you would the XP installation disk. To avoid getting lost and needing to reboot a few times to find your way simply press the enter key at each prompt. The defaults of 24bit and 1024x768 for a screen resolution work to keep everything visible onscreen.
 
Thank you very much PC eye. Another question, what is the advantage of partitioning the hard drive, why would someone want to do this unless they were using multiple OS. Does having multiple OS's slow the computer down, and will files in the hard drive acessable from either OS, or would one have to have a copy of each file in each system.
 
i had the same problem with XP every instal on about 4 computers every time 137G,.
i got very pissed off but i got it after a while when i found 300 odd gig unalacated
 
Being this is on a totally new system and likely brand new drive the primary would be NTFS by way of the XP installer. The likely mistake was reducing the size of the primary when the total amount of drive space available was being displayed.

The installer then went by the adjusted amount. That's where a partitioning tool can then be used to expand to fill in the unallocated space seen. All drives are partitioned either with one sibgle primary or with upto 4 primary type and then extended partitions. Foloowing the creation of the partition the OS will go onto the partition will need to be formatted as well in order to be usable.

Assuming XP is the version of Windows there, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348

Gee? 98SE was run on the large single Fat32 primary partition on a 250gb ide drive without any problems. But WD's DRFat32 replaced FDisk for that then while GParted can also create large Fat partitions. You still use the format.com file in order to see the format C: /s command used along with the switch or later use the sys C: command separately.

The updated version of fdisk good for 74gb while GParted used on 80gb for 98 lately to see a small recovery partition as well as the 70gb or so primary there.
 
kittysacattack said:
Thank you very much PC eye. Another question, what is the advantage of partitioning the hard drive, why would someone want to do this unless they were using multiple OS. Does having multiple OS's slow the computer down, and will files in the hard drive acessable from either OS, or would one have to have a copy of each file in each system.
Click to expand...

There are a few advantages about partitioning a hard drive with out multiple OS's for instance say I had 80 GB of media and backups of games and such, I wouldn't want to have to back that up every single time I (re) installed windows!I like to keep my program's and other stuff on one partition and windows on another.

Having multiple OS's will not slow down your computer.

This depends weather the OS supports the filesystem used. You can download drivers so that the OS can read other filesystems. What I would do though would be to have a partition for each OS and a larger one for all of your other data that was formatted in fat32. Because every modern and pre modern (to an extent) OS can read that.

Shenry
 
95 can't read Fat32 as a rule using Fat16 unless the 95 PLUS! edtition with OSR2 already included for 32bit support. NTFS however is the superior type of storage partition to create not Fat in a long shot. It's far more reliable as well as being able to be read faster.

XP can easily read a Vista made partition since both versions along with 2000 use NTFS 5.0. You can copy files back and forth easily between partitions. Only the version of Windows is different there.

Meanwhile XP sits happily on one drive here while Vista is default on another each being stand alone presently.
 
wow, all you guys were very helpful to me, thank you very much. The Gparted software was easy and painless, i was gonna reinstall windows and follow the instructions on the HD, this took like 5 minutes.
 
GParted is a far better tool then seen with the XP Disk Management tool by a mile storm there. It won't leave 1-8mb of unallocated drive spave at the beginning or end of the first primary on a drive when created like seen with the XP installer as well. MS had to make some improvements with Vista's partitioning tools there.
 
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