partition software

[kevinf]

i am planning to get a 200 gig hard drive and i know that there is a limit to 132 but i dont have a slipstream os with service pack and i dont want to slipstream. is there a free trial software that i can use after the installation of the os to make my partition bigger without reinstalling the drive

[spyder003]

After you install SP1 it should recognize the entire drive. Or is it going to be an additional drive in the system you already have? If so, you won't have any problems.

[kevinf]

i know but is there a way to integrate the extra space into the c drive without reformating the hdd again like a partitioning software thats for free

[spyder003]

Are you talking about meshing two drives into one partition?

[mrmister1]

You only need to make one partition. Then after you install SP1 or SP2 Windows will automatically detect it as the whole hard drive.

[kevinf]

so during the blue screen part of the installation i can select the whole 200 or will it also only detects as 127

[mrmister1]

Yes. Select the entire 200 GB. It won't show up as 200 in Windows at the beginning, only after you install SP1 or SP2.

[glc]

If this is an initial install with a "baseline" CD, you will only be able to partition it as a 137gb drive. The rest of the drive will not show up until SP1 or SP2 is installed, and it will be unpartitioned space. You then have to either create another partition or use Partition Magic. There is no free solution. Slipstream is the only free solution unless you can accept a drive with more than one partition.

[kevinf]

so if service pack 1 is slipstreamed into xp then i can just select the whole 200 in the initial setup and i dont have to use partition magic after the setup right?

[glc]

That's correct, as long as your bios supports 48 bit LBA. If it's the mobo in your sig, it does.

[kevinf]

if they already have mobos that supports 48 bit LBA then when is microsoft going to release a os that supports this out of the box with no updates

[spyder003]

They do, you can buy XP with SP2 on the CD.

[kevinf]

like with no service packs will they have it on the long horn

[spyder003]

Service packs are basically a bunch of patches in one. They release an OS, find problems, and instead of releasing 100 individual patches, they put them all in a Service pack. Longhorn will release as a standalone OS, just like all the others, they will most likely find problems, and they'll release Service packs to fix those problems.

[kevinf]

no, i mean will they ever release an os with no service packs with no updates and can support 48 bit LBA out of the box

[spyder003]

There are always going to be updates to ANY software, nothing is perfect.

[glc]

no, i mean will they ever release an os with no service packs with no updates and can support 48 bit LBA out of the box

YES - the next version of Windows, whatever they wind up calling it! In fact, I believe the baseline Server 2003 supports it.

48 bit LBA did not exist when XP originally was released - so what do you expect? You have a 3+ year old CD right now if your XP is baseline. They DID add support with SP1 and added support to Win2K at the same time with SP3.

Kevin, you gotta quit arguing and read what people are saying more closely.