Re: Extending a hard drive

OK, Anna, stay with me. Please don't take offense, but I think you may have
missed something. This is it:
1. The first 250 Gb hard drive was "Installed" by the WD Tools software.
That created one 137 GB recognized and usable partition.
2. I installed XP into the 137 GB partition.
3 Using Administrative Tools, Computer Management, I extended the hard drive
to 232 GB.
4. The drive died.

Not until I did 1, 2, and 3 did XP see the complete 232 GB drive. All the
above should prove that the BIOS supported at least 250 GB and that there was
nothing wrong with the new 80-conductor cable.

Had I known, which you seem to indicate works, that all I had to do was to
boot from the XP CD, I would have done it, but now, I don't see how I can put
the toothpaste back in the tube and start from scratch. What I want to do is
repeat the success with the first drive. THAT is the question; the only
question.

The WD Tools gave me no choice but to partition (one usable; one
unallocated), even after asking if I was going to install XP with at least
SP1. Not starting with the XP CD, and nothing else was, it would seem, my big
blunder the second time. Can't count the first time, because that was
successful, except for the doomed drive.

"Anna" wrote:


"Merry" <Merry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:D092ADCE-B91A-4F4E-866A-4C36004EC3AE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I rebuilt a computer with a new 250 GB hard drive. After installing XP,
I
was able to easily extend the 137 GB Drive C to take in all the
unallocated
space BUT I DID NOT KEEP NOTES. After about four weeks, the hard drive
died and was not even recognized by the BIOS. I replaced the drive
with another 250 GB and repopulated the hard drive. Now, I cannot
extend the 137 GB Drive C to
take in the unallocated space of 104 GB. I've even tried from Safe
Mode but I
get the same message "Diskpart failed to extend the volume. Please
make sure the volume is valid for extending." It is hard to understand
why I was able
to extend the first drive but not the second. Help!


"Anna" wrote:
Merry;
At least for the moment, let's forget about "extending" page file
partitions
or using the Diskpart command to "extend" your 250 GB HD.

Understand this...

There are two basic requirements for the XP OS to recognize the full
capacity of large-capacity drives, i.e., disks > 137 GB (about)...

1. The motherboard's BIOS must recognize large-capacity disks. We'll
assume
yours does. And,
2. SP1 and/or SP2 must be installed at the time the drive is installed.

And that's it. If your motherboard's BIOS supports large-capacity disks
and
you've installed SP1 and/or SP2 at the time the drive is installed, and
the
drive is non-defective and correctly connected/configured, then the full
capacity of your 250 GB HD (actually about 232 GB binary) will be
recognized
by the XP OS.

If, when you installed the 250 GB drive neither SP1 or SP2 was installed
then only about 137 GB (usually about 128 GB) will be recognized by the
system. If you LATER install SP1 and/or SP2 (and again assuming your
motherboard's BIOS recognizes large-capacity disks), then the full
capacity
of the disk WILL be recognized, but the disk space above 137 GB (128 GB)
will be "unallocated space"; disk space that you can partition/format
(through XP's Disk Management utility), but at the minimum it would mean
your drive would have two partitions.
Anna


"Merry" <Merry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:B8C94371-B9C7-4BDC-A33F-94E17C81A299@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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



.

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