I have two WD hds, a 40GB and an 80GB. When I first attempted to clean install Win XP to the 40GB last yr, I had problems until someone suggested resizing (I use Partition Magic) the C partition to 2GB. I did that and it installed. I later successfully resized C to 7-8GB. But more recently when I tried to resize to an even larger size (around 15GB I think it was), it caused all kinds of BSODs. I did notice a few days ago that the BIOS was loading the boot virus checker (it did it itself probably in self preservation) and I disabled that, but I am still having problems from time to time with apps not loading, MSIE locking up, etc. until I reboot. Then other apps may go awry at a later point. Someone suggested changing the drives to Cable Select from Master and Slave, but I read somewhere at WD support that Cable Select should not be used with Win XP. <?> Is that true? I really need more space on C drive... Windows seems to think no one partitions and has 100+Gigs on "its drive".

Short of reformatting C, reinstalling XP and all my apps, what else can I do? I am really getting annoyed with these problems and considering buying a new system! I am strongly considering this, but til March, I have no $$ to do this!

System: ASUS A7V w/AMD TBird 1.2G CPU, 768MB RAM, BIOS updated to last one available (1011), onbd Promise driver updated to last one available, Win XP SP1 and MSIE with all the latest <and plentiful> updates.

Thanks to anyone with some suggestions that will work!

So how big is your C: partition?
What is the total reported free space for the drive and each partition.
FAT32 or NTFS?
Where is your paging file? (I'd put it anywhere but C: )
XP Pro or XP Home? (I use my C: drives for the OS and hardware drivers only - My XP Pro C: drive has about 8 Gb used and my XP Home C: drive has about 3.5Gb used).

You should set the drives up in one of the following ways.

1. Both drives on the same controller/cable: The first (boot) drive drive will be the Master and the second drive will be the slave. CS is rarely used these days.

2. (Preferred Method) Both drives set as Master. Attach the boot drive to master connector on the cable and attach the cable to IDE connector 1. Attach the second (Apps/Data?) drive on IDE connector 2 in the same manner. Then configure and attach any optical drives (CD, CD-RW, DVD, etc) as slaves and hang them off the other cable connectors.

If I had a 40 and an 80, I would use the 40 as my C: drive and reinstall the OS selecting complete format and NTFS. Not what you wanted to hear, huh? Then I would use the 80 for all my apps, data, My Documents. I would probably partition out the 80 in 2 or 3 parts, one being only about 2 Gb and I would put my page/swap file out there.

Of course adding partitions creates new drive letters and pushes the optical drive letters back. To prevent that, I always change the letters of my CD drives to Q: and my DVD drives to V: - just makes it consistent on all my systems since they do not all have the same number of hard drives.

Partition Magic is a great program and life saver, but it sounds like your partitions have been resized several times - I think that's inviting trouble and that's whats making me lean towards complete format/reinstall.

_________________
Bill, AFE7Ret
Freedom is NOT Free!

To answer a couple questions asked of me:
whole sys is NTFS, paging was on last partition of 2nd HD, using XP Pro, both drives on one ATA100 1st master & 2nd slave, CDROM and CDRW on one IDE, ZIP750 int on 2nd IDE. (I guess the second ATA100 is not being used. Can't remember.)

Just a quick update to my post & dilemma -

2/8: Using PMagic, I deleted everything and started fresh creating new partitions and making C the entire 40gig HD. After a week of entering stuff when I had time, the system got more flaky yesterday than ever before.

Today: Now I am going to do the same thing, but put C back to ONLY within the 1024 boundary. I think my outdated BIOS with XP just can't handle anything larger. (I am also going to install MS VM 3810 from softwarepatch.com since at least one of my apps needs it. &^%$ to MS for removing it from SP1!)

After I get everything BACK on again, I am going to start ordering new components to build a new system. I sure wish I could use Linux... but I don't have time to learn and make it work for me right now.

mha
-- in Windows purgatory