RE: Cannot find HD

Tech-Archive recommends: Speed Up your PC by fixing your registry

From: Peter (anonymous_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 02/03/04 

Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 00:51:09 -0800

HI,

4 Gig HDD is not good enough to run XP (at least 15GB to run XP and it may be the reason why you
have trouble during the installation of SP1) and I think it is an old HDD with ATA66 or less.
I would suggest you to buy a new HDD with ATA100/133 7200RPM (80 GB for less than $100.-)
Use the new HDD at master and the 20 GB HDD as slave.
You can partition the new HDD to C drive (20GB) and the rest to D drive.
The slave drive will become E drive and use it for pagefiles (virtual memory) and backup.

Notes:

1. Use a 40 Pin 80 conductors IDE cable to connect the two HDDs. Set the jumpers to auto detect for both HDDs.
2. Enable UDMA mode in BIOS for both HDDs in the primary IDE channel.
3. Create a pagefile in the slave drive to improve the PC performance.
   For example, set the mininum and maximun value to 368MB in C drive and then set mininum 256MB
   and maxinum 768MB in the slave drive. You can just use the default pagefile in C drive when you installed XP
   and set the maximum value same as the defaulted mininum value. In this case, the pagefile is located at the
   front portion of the HDD and would not be fragmented. Format the slave drive and create the pagefile immediately.
   The pagefile will also located at the front portion of the slave drive and would not be fragmented.

How to change/set pagefile:

Right click My Computer/Properties/Advance, click the setting button at the performance area, click the advance tab,
click the change button in the virtual memory area, select the drive(s) and then change the settings.

Peter

     
     ----- Siena wrote: -----
     
     I've had to reformat for my c:(4gig) and d:(20gig) hard
     drives and reinstalled Windows XP Professional and
     subsequent upgrades (except SP1 - I'm having trouble with
     that one).
     
     Since doing all that, I cannot find my d: hard drive in
     My Computer. When I try to find it with the command
     prompt it states that the drive is not ready - it assumes
     that my CD Rom drive is now D: (without a disk in it).
     
     However, it does show up as a device in the system folder
     in the control panel and it appears to be working
     correctly. I've deleted the drivers for it and my system
     found the HD and reinstalled the drivers for it. Upon
     startup, it also shows up in the BIOS.
     
     What am I missing? D: drive is empty and had no system
     files on it. I had it working before as a partitioned
     disk into two disks. I've since removed the partition
     after reformatting.
     
     Any advice would be welcome.
     
     Thank you.
     

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