I have 2 x 320gb SATA drives in my computer. I have just installed XP home
followed by service pack 2 on the computer. When I look in disk management I
see that there is about 170gb of unallocated space on both drives. Howdo I
allocate this space so it can be used?
> I have 2 x 320gb SATA drives in my computer. I have just installed XP home
> followed by service pack 2 on the computer. When I look in disk management
> I see that there is about 170gb of unallocated space on both drives. Howdo
> I allocate this space so it can be used?
In Disk management, create a new partition or partitions in the unallocated
space.
Probably as a result of using a win installation cd that did not contain the
service pack that had the 'enable big Lba' feature
In future you can overcome this by creating a slipstreamed winxp cd that
contains the latest service pack
Currently you would have to use Disk Management to create partitions in the
free space, or if you wish to allocate free space to the current partitions
you would have to use a third party tool. eg Partition Magic (I assume these
partitions have data/apps on them, or are o/s partitions)
"Martin" <Martin@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:5441A575-2283-4D6B-934F-5C86D9B3EB8D@microsoft.com...
> I have 2 x 320gb SATA drives in my computer. I have just installed XP home
> followed by service pack 2 on the computer. When I look in disk management
I
> see that there is about 170gb of unallocated space on both drives. Howdo I
> allocate this space so it can be used?
>I have 2 x 320gb SATA drives in my computer. I have just installed XP home
>followed by service pack 2 on the computer. When I look in disk management I
>see that there is about 170gb of unallocated space on both drives. Howdo I
>allocate this space so it can be used?
If that 170GB is actually space that's not currently part of a
partition, then you should be able to find tools to create a partition
from it in Disk Management. If you want to expand the existing
partition to use that space, you'll need a third-party tool, DM cannot
perform that task.
"Martin" <Martin@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote
>I have 2 x 320gb SATA drives in my computer. I have just installed XP home
> followed by service pack 2 on the computer. When I look in disk management
> I
> see that there is about 170gb of unallocated space on both drives. Howdo I
> allocate this space so it can be used?
There are at three things you can do here.
1. Create an XP installation CD slipstreamed with SP2 and redo the XP
installation with that CD. You used a CD that does not have SP1 or SP2, and
this version of XP can only see drives up to 137GB, hence the remaining
unallocated space when SP2 is installed. Here are some links with info on
how to do the slipstreaming. Autostreamer makes it easier.
2. Use Disk Management in XP to partition/format the currently unallocated
space into additional volumes.
3. Use one of the 3rd party tools such as Partition Magic from Symantec,
Acronis Disk Director Suite from Acronis or BootIT NG from Terabyte
Unlimited (which offers a 30 day full featured free trial version) to non
destructively merge the unallocated and allocated spaces into one partition.
unallocated space 
Linear Mode
