Win XP and partitions question

[BD72055]

Hi, I'll try to make this as brief as possible. I'm having a problem with my week old Dell Dimension 4600, Pentium 4 at 2.4Ghz, 256MB memory, 40GB hd, Win XP Home. On of our kids tried to install a Win XP compatable Baseball 2003 game and it crashed the system with the BSOD and the stop error, I didn't log the error code. Now Win XP is having fits and is crashing the stop errors and the BSOD.

Using the recovery CD which came with the system I decided to do a clean install of Win XP, the only software on the system was AOL version 8. I found two partitions set up from Dell. The first one was not labelled and was using the FAT file system and 39MB of disk space. The second partition was labelled "C" with the NTFS file system and about 37GB of disk space. There was about 8MB of unpartitioned disk space also.

I decide to delete the existing partitions and create the first partition about 2GB with NTFS for Win XP. The second partition was the remaining disk space with NTFS. I formatted them and started installing Win XP from the Dell supplied CD. I started getting errors about Win XP setup not being able to copy a file from the CD to the hard drive, press enter to retry or ESC to skip the file. Pressing enter usually worked, but not every time. I also got a message saying the file "xxxxx.xxx" is not part of Win XP installation a few times.

By the time the install reaches 80%, sometimes sooner, I get the BSOD with a stop error. Do you thing I have to create the 39MB FAT partiton to get pat this? Any suggestions ar much appreciated!! Thanks in advance.

 

[ekÆsine]

yeah dave i've never looked at the partitions on a dell machine but, i was thinking the same thing. that 39MB FAT partition might have stored files needed for recovery so even if you remake that partition you might be stuck.

the 8MB partition is required for win2000 and winXP because they have NTFS partitions and that 8MB is reserved for converting from basic to dynamic disks. many people including me have been frustrated about trying to delete that partition.

although i think i may have found a fix for that: take the hard disk to another winXP and setup the partitions using storage >> disk management snapin in the computer management console. doing that even when i delete a primary partition with the winXP CD the 8MB never comes back.

if you have problems you could ask dell if they could send a replacement for the "defective" disk. well lesson learned: i think you will never let your kid install that baseball game again. if it was me i would manipulate it in a way to blame it on the dell hardware, i don't like dell

 

[BD72055]

Thank you both for your advice. After running advanced diagnostics I found the machine has defective memory chips. I called Dell Support and they are sending a replacement system unit. I just bought the system on 10/15 so they were great about assisting me with this problem.

Now when I get the replacement system, I'm not sure if I should install that BaseBall2003 game, it says it's Win XP compatable. I did have it running once before, we will see. Thanks again!

 

[Apokalipse]

well on the topic of Hard Drive partitioning, i have a 40 gig drive and XP home but it only shows 37.2 gig. I had used a restore CD (NOT made by the manufacturers of the computer) with Windows 98 and did not give me the full 40 gig. now that I have XP i should only have 8 MB missing from it but it is still only 37.2 gig instead of 39.9 (40 gig minus 8 MB)

 

[Apokalipse]

Thank you both for your advice. After running advanced diagnostics I found the machine has defective memory chips. I called Dell Support and they are sending a replacement system unit. I just bought the system on 10/15 so they were great about assisting me with this problem.

Now when I get the replacement system, I'm not sure if I should install that BaseBall2003 game, it says it's Win XP compatable. I did have it running once before, we will see. Thanks again!

well if the problem was the memory chips, not the game then it should be ok to install.

 

[ekÆsine]

apoc you are not missing any storage space. hard disk manufacturers use 1000MB=1GB rule. true computer rule is 1024MB=1GB. it is a ploy by hard disk manufacturers to make their product sound like they hold more. do the math you will see difference, i thought everyone knew this

 

[BD72055]

apokalipse, thanks. I didn't think it was the game, it said it was Win XP compatible, and I did get it to run before I reinstalled Win XP on a single partition.

 

[James]

Its affirmed that 39MB's partition is a system partition used by DELL. IBM & HP also used the same way of doing things. The 39MB actually contains the process of bootup, installation and what kind of drivers to install frm what disk. So, if you never use the recovery CD to reinstall the system, you will never get the entire PC to be up running well. And that 39MB must not be deleted at all times, coz it also contain an image of your existing configurations.

In some ways, 39MB partition works like an answer file for ur system.

Dun worry abt the games, coz XP has backward compatibility ability with old games, as long as they are meant for 98 onwards, XP should be able to play it. XP only have issues with hardware that does not have firmware meant for XP, and some issues with software applications that does not include XP's handling logic functions. Otherwise, XP is fine.

As for the 8MB issue, well, NTFS partition will always be left with an 8MB, so you del or dun del, serve no meaning. Just leave it there wont harm anything.

Why you dun reach 40GB, like ekine said, its the mathematical caculations issue.

 

[Apokalipse]

but shouldn't it be 40,000,000,000 bytes if they use 1000? that's not my HDD, it's 40,015,953,920 bytes

 

[ekÆsine]

i guess i didn't factor in the operating system. here's some anwswers for you:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread/t-57721.html

http://www.nvdi.com/whertra/w950510.htm

http://www.pcguide.com/ts/x/comp/hdd/spaceMissingSpace-c.html