250GB WD Drive in Dell Inspiron 8500
Posted: Thu May 14, 2009 4:19 pm
Okay, I read and done the research on the board, and I think I understand how this works, but I'm wanting to talk through how to make it happen correctly...
Background:
I have a Dell Inspiron 8500 with the most recent BIOS update (Revision A08)
I've maxed out the RAM (2GB) and am replacing the original 60GB HD with a 250GB WD drive I got for my birthday.
I will be installing WinXP SP1 (and after installation, upgrading back to SP3).
For this to work with the LBA limitation in the BIOS, I need to partition the drive into pieces (already tried to split it in 2 116.45GB drives, but we'll give this another go) and install the OS on the partition that is smaller than the 120GB/137GB limit.
When I tried this before, I used WinXP SP3 Drive Manager to create 2 equal partitions of 116.45GB in size and formatted them using an external USB case. I made them PRIMARY partitions (don't know if I should have done LOGICAL partitions, so some pointers there would be helpful). Took out the old HD and installed the new one, and put in the OS CD to re-install, and the disk hung when it started to "Examining System".
All this being said, should I try making the first partition smaller still? Should I see if I can use the CD to install the OS on that partition while it is in the USB case?
I would appreciate any help that can be offered, as I am unemployed, and can't really afford to get a new computer...
Many thanks and God Bless,
Eric "GuitarEC"
Background:
I have a Dell Inspiron 8500 with the most recent BIOS update (Revision A08)
I've maxed out the RAM (2GB) and am replacing the original 60GB HD with a 250GB WD drive I got for my birthday.
I will be installing WinXP SP1 (and after installation, upgrading back to SP3).
For this to work with the LBA limitation in the BIOS, I need to partition the drive into pieces (already tried to split it in 2 116.45GB drives, but we'll give this another go) and install the OS on the partition that is smaller than the 120GB/137GB limit.
When I tried this before, I used WinXP SP3 Drive Manager to create 2 equal partitions of 116.45GB in size and formatted them using an external USB case. I made them PRIMARY partitions (don't know if I should have done LOGICAL partitions, so some pointers there would be helpful). Took out the old HD and installed the new one, and put in the OS CD to re-install, and the disk hung when it started to "Examining System".
All this being said, should I try making the first partition smaller still? Should I see if I can use the CD to install the OS on that partition while it is in the USB case?
I would appreciate any help that can be offered, as I am unemployed, and can't really afford to get a new computer...
Many thanks and God Bless,
Eric "GuitarEC"