New XP install, won't recognize correct HD size, help!

[geepondy]

Ok, putting together my first ever SATA system with a 320gb SATA drive. I am attempting to load a pre-sp1 copy of XP and it says the unpartitioned size is 131070 MB, obviously incorrect. I thought I have read somewhere that it's only after SP1 that will recognize bigger drives, is this correct? How can I get around this? Is there some boot utility I can put on a cd rom that will boot up and correctly partition and format the disk? I have another system that is completely windows up to date but it is all ATA, no SATA. Please help me on this. Even if somehow I am able to partition and format to correct size when I then go to reload windows again, will it still have trouble recognizing the drive?

EDIT: Trying to do some research and one suggestion is to just create a smaller partition and then update to latest XP and use native partition to partition rest of drive as a second drive letter. That would not be my first choice although I suppose preferable to buying another copy of XP.

 

[corkyg]

Consider slipstreaming SP2 (which includes SP1) into a new burn CD of your existing XP CD. The forum is full of how to do that.

To do that you need an operating computer and burner - use the one you had before this new one. Then with the slipstreamed disk, you should be able to install XP on your new SATA based system.

Alternatively, call Microsoft, give your key ID and request a new CD with SP2 slipstreamed, and you may have to pay S/H, but you';ll have what you need.

You can't print tomorrow's headlines with yesterday's news.

 

[Old Hippie]

If it were me, I'd just let it install. What's the worst that's gonna happen after SP1 "discovers" the new size? You're gonna have an option to do something.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Old Hippie
If it were me, I'd just let it install. What's the worst that's gonna happen after SP1 "discovers" the new size? You're gonna have an option to do something.

It will show up as unpartitioned space and he'll have 2 partitions on the same drive. He won't really lose space, but it's a huge pain in the ass to have multiple drives. My computer has a software raid across 5 disks simply to make the file system easier to navigate, and I did that even though software raids are slower and way more prone to failure. Simplicity is important.