I brought a new 160gb hard drive for my laptop and installed windows vista (wouldnt let me install XP).
When it asked for the install directory, i made a 40gb partition on the hard drive but now it only shows the 40gb partition and no the other 120gb
Do i need to reinstall windows to correct this or is there another way?
You've probably got to go into disk management (I'm talking XP here but Vista probably has similar in control panel/administrative tools
somewhere) and actually create/format your second partition, before it will be recognised. During the install process you created the 40gb partition
for windows, but it wouldn't automatically have sorted out the second partition, I dont think.
Liam
What Liam said, its not picking it up as the other partition isnt formatted.
Vista has disk manager too, just use that to format the rest of the disc, then you will be able to use it.
David
use compmgmt.msc to access computer management. This works on XP, i don't have a vista machine to try it on.
There should be a Disk Management node, click that
At the bottom you should see your 120gb that you have no assigned to a drive letter, or formatted etc.
I think it is right click, Mark Partion as Active, it may ask you to format etc from there, but without this on my machine i am unsure of the screen
prompt.
HTH
Brilliant, cheers guys. All sorted now
just changed from Vista to XP on my new laptop, thank god 
The CD Automatically removed Vista (and all my drivers, must remember to back them up next time)
The machines totally transformed and working fantastic runs all my programs and seems much more powerful running vids and graphics. Awful Vista
garbage 
next to do is the GFs laptop
[Edited on 15/1/10 by Mr Whippy]
quote:
Originally posted by Mr Whippy
just changed from Vista to XP on my new laptop, thank god
The CD Automatically removed Vista (and all my drivers, must remember to back them up next time)
The machines totally transformed and working fantastic
next to do is the GFs laptop
[Edited on 15/1/10 by Mr Whippy]
You got a genuine copy of XP then? When I did mine it shows the drives and then asks you to remove the partitions then it installs. There was a funny
way to get the installation process going.
Had to boot it up the computer, once at the desk top screen, insert the CD, switch off, restart I think it was. I bough my disk of the web for £30.
I hadn’t a clue what I was doing and just followed the instructions word for word. I could photograph and send you then if you have none. Really am
glad I got rid of vista, it was hellish and wouldn’t run any of my older programs.
Just mind to make a backup disk with the drivers unlike me, tbh I'm not even sure how to do that. Got them all of the web from the HP website and
other sites, thanks to good advice of guys on here
[Edited on 15/1/10 by Mr Whippy]
I've had Vista on here since 2008 and apart from the driver for a scanner not being available it's been no trouble at all. I'm not a big fan of XP or Vista, our old computer still runs fine on 2000 pro and you don't have to ask it if you can do something or activate it so they know where you are. We'll try Windows 7 on the next one I build. I formatted a laptop and installed XP for a friend a few weeks ago but it was mostly automatic, does your hard drive show up in bios ?(I assume it does if the computer is working) and have you tried formatting the drive then installing xp which is the only way to go really. As above make sure you have the motherboard drivers for xp or you will be stuffed.
^ my XP disk formated the hard drive as part of the installation process
Yeah, its a genuine copy.
Il wait till the new partition has finished formatting and il give it another shot.
have you got instructions?
Yes i have the instructions.
I just tried it again (after formatting) and its just come up with the same message saying it cannot detect a hard drive.
What format have you used?
NTFS is the one that XP usually sees best.
yeah, its NTFS
what kind of laptops are we talking about here ?
quote:
Originally posted by Peteff
We'll try Windows 7 on the next one I build.
quote:
Originally posted by speedyxjs
When i put the xp disk in, it doesn't detect my hard drive and so wont allow me to install it. If i plug in an external har drive, it will detect that but wont install on that either.
worth having a look in the BIOS to see if you can change the SATA to "legacy IDE" or similar wording
Regards
Rob