Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

I just bought a new Ultra/ATA 250 GB, to be used as my only drive. My
original Win XP is a little old, and doesn't include neither SP 1 nor SP 2,
which I have in separate CD's. So, when installing XP, at the point of
formatting my drive, it only can handle smaller drives, and takes 127 GB as
the whole disk. I've been able to create a second logical drive by creating a
second partition in the free portion of the disk, but I wish I could convert
the whole thing in only one partition. And I couldn't , I would like to
resize the second one by making it bigger and shrinking the first one. But
I'm not purchasing PartitionMagic only for that. Does it make sense? Who can
give a better (and cheaper) option?

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Sancho wrote:

> I just bought a new Ultra/ATA 250 GB, to be used as my only drive. My
> original Win XP is a little old, and doesn't include neither SP 1 nor
> SP 2, which I have in separate CD's. So, when installing XP, at the
> point of formatting my drive, it only can handle smaller drives, and
> takes 127 GB as the whole disk. I've been able to create a second
> logical drive by creating a second partition in the free portion of
> the disk, but I wish I could convert the whole thing in only one
> partition. And I couldn't , I would like to resize the second one by
> making it bigger and shrinking the first one. But I'm not purchasing
> PartitionMagic only for that. Does it make sense? Who can give a
> better (and cheaper) option?


Make a slipsteamed Windows XP CD including SP2 and install from that.

Read here: http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?t=7262

--
Ken Blake
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Thank you Ken, it's a great option, but implies reinstalling the whole OS. I
was thinking more like resizing my partitions with some freeware or
shareware, (but not PartitionMagic, which has a non-operative free trial)
Thank you

"Ken Blake" wrote:

> Sancho wrote:
>
> > I just bought a new Ultra/ATA 250 GB, to be used as my only drive. My
> > original Win XP is a little old, and doesn't include neither SP 1 nor
> > SP 2, which I have in separate CD's. So, when installing XP, at the
> > point of formatting my drive, it only can handle smaller drives, and
> > takes 127 GB as the whole disk. I've been able to create a second
> > logical drive by creating a second partition in the free portion of
> > the disk, but I wish I could convert the whole thing in only one
> > partition. And I couldn't , I would like to resize the second one by
> > making it bigger and shrinking the first one. But I'm not purchasing
> > PartitionMagic only for that. Does it make sense? Who can give a
> > better (and cheaper) option?
>
>
> Make a slipsteamed Windows XP CD including SP2 and install from that.
>
> Read here: http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?t=7262
>
> --
> Ken Blake
> Please Reply to the Newsgroup
>
>
>
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Its my experience and highly suggested that people avoid the use of the
larger disks as the bootable primary drive. As a second drive with nothing
but data yes.

The point is, all Windows OS are still garbage cans and over time become
slower and slower and slower until the day comes they won't boot or become
so slow they are useless. This is being called WinROT and there are several
factors involved but the most well known is the use of the system registry
which is a great big garbage can that gets filled with all kinds of entries
many many many of which are left behind even when uninstalling software. The
use of the registry cleaners has not proven to solve the problem.

Buy a new 40 and avoid the hassle. If you need to install more programs get
an 80 but 40 will hold a lot of software when the data is on another drive.
Disks are so inexpensive I would buy the 80 myself which is exactly what I
do just to get the little extra. I spent my extra money on Acronis TrueImage
to image the primary drive and put all the images on the second drive (the
big fat momma 250). Then when Windows goes rotten all you need to do is
reformat and restore whatever image you want. This is one of several
methodologies that people have learned to work with the garbage can that is
impossible to escape.


<%= Clinton Gallagher
METROmilwaukee (sm) "A Regional Information Service"
NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
URL http://metromilwaukee.com/
URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/




"Sancho" <Sancho@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A4A68BB9-B293-49F4-96F1-2E05BACE0A57@microsoft.com...
>I just bought a new Ultra/ATA 250 GB, to be used as my only drive. My
> original Win XP is a little old, and doesn't include neither SP 1 nor SP
> 2,
> which I have in separate CD's. So, when installing XP, at the point of
> formatting my drive, it only can handle smaller drives, and takes 127 GB
> as
> the whole disk. I've been able to create a second logical drive by
> creating a
> second partition in the free portion of the disk, but I wish I could
> convert
> the whole thing in only one partition. And I couldn't , I would like to
> resize the second one by making it bigger and shrinking the first one. But
> I'm not purchasing PartitionMagic only for that. Does it make sense? Who
> can
> give a better (and cheaper) option?

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Sancho wrote:
> I just bought a new Ultra/ATA 250 GB, to be used as my only drive. My
> original Win XP is a little old, and doesn't include neither SP 1 nor
> SP 2, which I have in separate CD's. So, when installing XP, at the
> point of formatting my drive, it only can handle smaller drives, and
> takes 127 GB as the whole disk. I've been able to create a second
> logical drive by creating a second partition in the free portion of
> the disk, but I wish I could convert the whole thing in only one
> partition. And I couldn't , I would like to resize the second one by
> making it bigger and shrinking the first one. But I'm not purchasing
> PartitionMagic only for that. Does it make sense? Who can give a
> better (and cheaper) option?

A product called BootIt NG will accomplish all of this easily. It is available as a 30 day, fully functional demo and costs less than 40 dollars US, if you decide to keep it. It has an excellent selection of supporting documentation as well as a private newsgroup where you can interact with the programs author. You can either install it or simply run it directly from a floppy.

TeraByte Unlimited:
http://www.bootitng.com/bootitng.html

--

Ronnie Vernon
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Hi ClintonG:
It sounds like a good idea; in fact I still have my old 30GB (in good shape)
that I most likely will use as a bootable, so I can use my new HD as storage,
for music, videos and stuff. Thank you

"clintonG" wrote:

> Its my experience and highly suggested that people avoid the use of the
> larger disks as the bootable primary drive. As a second drive with nothing
> but data yes.
>
> The point is, all Windows OS are still garbage cans and over time become
> slower and slower and slower until the day comes they won't boot or become
> so slow they are useless. This is being called WinROT and there are several
> factors involved but the most well known is the use of the system registry
> which is a great big garbage can that gets filled with all kinds of entries
> many many many of which are left behind even when uninstalling software. The
> use of the registry cleaners has not proven to solve the problem.
>
> Buy a new 40 and avoid the hassle. If you need to install more programs get
> an 80 but 40 will hold a lot of software when the data is on another drive.
> Disks are so inexpensive I would buy the 80 myself which is exactly what I
> do just to get the little extra. I spent my extra money on Acronis TrueImage
> to image the primary drive and put all the images on the second drive (the
> big fat momma 250). Then when Windows goes rotten all you need to do is
> reformat and restore whatever image you want. This is one of several
> methodologies that people have learned to work with the garbage can that is
> impossible to escape.
>
>
> <%= Clinton Gallagher
> METROmilwaukee (sm) "A Regional Information Service"
> NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
> URL http://metromilwaukee.com/
> URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/
>
>
>
>
> "Sancho" <Sancho@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:A4A68BB9-B293-49F4-96F1-2E05BACE0A57@microsoft.com...
> >I just bought a new Ultra/ATA 250 GB, to be used as my only drive. My
> > original Win XP is a little old, and doesn't include neither SP 1 nor SP
> > 2,
> > which I have in separate CD's. So, when installing XP, at the point of
> > formatting my drive, it only can handle smaller drives, and takes 127 GB
> > as
> > the whole disk. I've been able to create a second logical drive by
> > creating a
> > second partition in the free portion of the disk, but I wish I could
> > convert
> > the whole thing in only one partition. And I couldn't , I would like to
> > resize the second one by making it bigger and shrinking the first one. But
> > I'm not purchasing PartitionMagic only for that. Does it make sense? Who
> > can
> > give a better (and cheaper) option?
>
>
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

If the bios recognized the hard drive's capacity, there's no reason you
could have not used NTFS instead of FAT32 to begin with. Since you have
visible remaining unallocated space on the hard drive, 127GB is not a bios
problem in your case. Rather, it sounds like the partitioning program you
used.

"Sancho" <Sancho@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:A4A68BB9-B293-49F4-96F1-2E05BACE0A57@microsoft.com...
> I just bought a new Ultra/ATA 250 GB, to be used as my only drive. My
> original Win XP is a little old, and doesn't include neither SP 1 nor SP
2,
> which I have in separate CD's. So, when installing XP, at the point of
> formatting my drive, it only can handle smaller drives, and takes 127 GB
as
> the whole disk. I've been able to create a second logical drive by
creating a
> second partition in the free portion of the disk, but I wish I could
convert
> the whole thing in only one partition. And I couldn't , I would like to
> resize the second one by making it bigger and shrinking the first one. But
> I'm not purchasing PartitionMagic only for that. Does it make sense? Who
can
> give a better (and cheaper) option?

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Yes, it is a good idea thank you and is how I've been operating for the last
several years.

The trade off is an older drive 'might be' slower than the newer big fat
momma depending how old it is but even that trade-off has been marginalized
as most drives for the last 5 years or so all spin at 72,000 with seek time
varying slightly here and there. If you put your swap drive on the big fat
momma that will help offset any diminished performance which is really
negligible compared to what WinRot does. We also get much better performance
when putting each drive on its own cable with its own channel. Your
motherboard supports this so take advantage of it.

Now the real quandry is how to backup the big fat momma? Although rare she
may fail someday herself and then what? I use redundant backup by backing up
my data from the backup machine onto disks on older machines I kept around.
The tradeoff being a higher electric bill which is only about $30 a year per
machine.

<%= Clinton Gallagher


"Sancho" <Sancho@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:07004DBA-0907-421D-9606-326EA6CB6D5B@microsoft.com...
> Hi ClintonG:
> It sounds like a good idea; in fact I still have my old 30GB (in good
> shape)
> that I most likely will use as a bootable, so I can use my new HD as
> storage,
> for music, videos and stuff. Thank you
>
> "clintonG" wrote:
>
>> Its my experience and highly suggested that people avoid the use of the
>> larger disks as the bootable primary drive. As a second drive with
>> nothing
>> but data yes.
>>
>> The point is, all Windows OS are still garbage cans and over time become
>> slower and slower and slower until the day comes they won't boot or
>> become
>> so slow they are useless. This is being called WinROT and there are
>> several
>> factors involved but the most well known is the use of the system
>> registry
>> which is a great big garbage can that gets filled with all kinds of
>> entries
>> many many many of which are left behind even when uninstalling software.
>> The
>> use of the registry cleaners has not proven to solve the problem.
>>
>> Buy a new 40 and avoid the hassle. If you need to install more programs
>> get
>> an 80 but 40 will hold a lot of software when the data is on another
>> drive.
>> Disks are so inexpensive I would buy the 80 myself which is exactly what
>> I
>> do just to get the little extra. I spent my extra money on Acronis
>> TrueImage
>> to image the primary drive and put all the images on the second drive
>> (the
>> big fat momma 250). Then when Windows goes rotten all you need to do is
>> reformat and restore whatever image you want. This is one of several
>> methodologies that people have learned to work with the garbage can that
>> is
>> impossible to escape.
>>
>>
>> <%= Clinton Gallagher
>> METROmilwaukee (sm) "A Regional Information Service"
>> NET csgallagher AT metromilwaukee.com
>> URL http://metromilwaukee.com/
>> URL http://clintongallagher.metromilwaukee.com/
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> "Sancho" <Sancho@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:A4A68BB9-B293-49F4-96F1-2E05BACE0A57@microsoft.com...
>> >I just bought a new Ultra/ATA 250 GB, to be used as my only drive. My
>> > original Win XP is a little old, and doesn't include neither SP 1 nor
>> > SP
>> > 2,
>> > which I have in separate CD's. So, when installing XP, at the point of
>> > formatting my drive, it only can handle smaller drives, and takes 127
>> > GB
>> > as
>> > the whole disk. I've been able to create a second logical drive by
>> > creating a
>> > second partition in the free portion of the disk, but I wish I could
>> > convert
>> > the whole thing in only one partition. And I couldn't , I would like to
>> > resize the second one by making it bigger and shrinking the first one.
>> > But
>> > I'm not purchasing PartitionMagic only for that. Does it make sense?
>> > Who
>> > can
>> > give a better (and cheaper) option?
>>
>>
>>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Sancho wrote:

> Thank you Ken, it's a great option, but implies reinstalling the
> whole OS. I was thinking more like resizing my partitions with some
> freeware or shareware, (but not PartitionMagic, which has a
> non-operative free trial) Thank you


You're welcome. I mistakenly thought you wanted to reinstall.
To change the partition structure of the drive non-destructively requires
the use of a third-party program. Partition Magic is the best-known such
program, but there are shareware/freeware alternatives. One shareware
product that gets good reports (although I haven't used it personally) is
Bootit Next generation. It has a 30-day free trial, so it may meet your
needs.


--
Ken Blake
Please Reply to the Newsgroup





> "Ken Blake" wrote:
>
>> Sancho wrote:
>>
>>> I just bought a new Ultra/ATA 250 GB, to be used as my only drive.
>>> My original Win XP is a little old, and doesn't include neither SP
>>> 1 nor SP 2, which I have in separate CD's. So, when installing XP,
>>> at the point of formatting my drive, it only can handle smaller
>>> drives, and takes 127 GB as the whole disk. I've been able to
>>> create a second logical drive by creating a second partition in the
>>> free portion of the disk, but I wish I could convert the whole
>>> thing in only one partition. And I couldn't , I would like to
>>> resize the second one by making it bigger and shrinking the first
>>> one. But I'm not purchasing PartitionMagic only for that. Does it
>>> make sense? Who can give a better (and cheaper) option?
>>
>>
>> Make a slipsteamed Windows XP CD including SP2 and install from that.
>>
>> Read here: http://forum.aumha.org/viewtopic.php?t=7262
>>
>> --
>> Ken Blake
>> Please Reply to the Newsgroup

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

Sancho <Sancho@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>Thank you Ken, it's a great option, but implies reinstalling the whole OS. I
>was thinking more like resizing my partitions with some freeware or
>shareware, (but not PartitionMagic, which has a non-operative free trial)
>Thank you
>

BootItNG (www.bootitng.com) has a fully functioning 30 day free trial.

Do not install it - just create the diskette and boot with that to
work on your partitions.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

In memory of a dear friend Alex Nichol MVP
http://aumha.org/alex.htm

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.general (More info?)

On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 16:42:01 -0700, Sancho <Sancho@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I just bought a new Ultra/ATA 250 GB, to be used as my only drive.... I would like to
>resize the second one by making it bigger and shrinking the first one. But
>I'm not purchasing PartitionMagic only for that. Does it make sense? Who can
>give a better (and cheaper) option?

Take a look at what Fred Langa has to say about Windows and partiton sizes at http://www.langalist.com. He talks so much
sense, essentially keep XP on a small partition, 10gb +/-, makes back-ups and restores much easier & faster.

I tried BootIt NG, as a word of warning the learning curve is almost vertical unless you happen to be a black-belt guru.
It also managed to delete a partition on Drive 1, a separate physical drive, when I was re-sizing Drive 0. When I wrote
to their tech support I was treated like an idiot from the get go. (It may in fact be true that I am an idiot, but they
didn't know anything about me when I first wrote, they just went for the jugular.) By the way, Partition Magic did find
the missing partition, worth the money for that alone. However, I'm sure there are plenty of people who'll tell you
Bootit is a great program.

David