Unallocated extra drive space after SP2 upgrade

[Guest]

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

I have noticed that both of my 160 gig hard drives have 21 gigs of
unallocated space. Windows XP Pro SP2 is giving me the choice of creating
either a primary partition or an extended partition for each of these usused
sections of the drives. I'm not sure which to choose.

What will it do to my drive letters? Add two more?

Can I use a partition manager to just make the main primary partition of
each drive 21 gigs larger?

 

[Guest]

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

Hank G wrote on 01-Oct-2004 12:48 PM:
> I have noticed that both of my 160 gig hard drives have 21 gigs of
> unallocated space. Windows XP Pro SP2 is giving me the choice of creating
> either a primary partition or an extended partition for each of these usused
> sections of the drives. I'm not sure which to choose.
>
> What will it do to my drive letters? Add two more?
>
> Can I use a partition manager to just make the main primary partition of
> each drive 21 gigs larger?
>
>
If you upgraded from XP RTM to SP2 without upgrading to SP1, you will
benefit from the 48 bit Logical Byte Addressing capability that was
added to XP in SP1. This permits partitions to be greater than 137 GB,
so you can get the full 160 GB in a single partition.

You can create additional partitions and give them drive letters or you
can buy a third-party partition manager and expand your current
partitions, but be careful -- you can't reinstall XP from the original
CD because it doesn't support 48 bit LBA. You will have to slipstream
SP2 into XP so that you can reinstall from an SP2 XP CD, else your
expanded partition will be unreadable. If you don't want to slipstream,
then create the additional partitions, keeping each partition less than
137 GB. I recommend primary type.

--
Kent W. England, Microsoft MVP for Windows Security