dell inspiron 1100 hdd 160gb help

how to install on dell inspiron 1100 hdd 160gb, bios sees only 137 gb so windows xp install does not see drive

 

Were talking XP here? And an SP1 reinstallation disc?

Probably the easiest way to sort this is to partition the disc into 2 partitions each less than 137gig before you do the install. Usual way to do this is with GParted. It's a standalone CD that is found on a lot of linux live CDs. After you install windows you can keep the 2 partitions or is should be possible to merge them into 1 after you've installed XP SP3.

This method works on most laptops of this era.

 

You *must* use (at least) two partitions to use the entire 160GB. The OS partition must be kept smaller than 137GB.

The 32-bit disk driver in XP (SP1 and above) can see the whole 160GB, but your BIOS' embedded 16-bit driver cannot. When Windows boots, it begins by using the BIOS driver and CPU real-mode, then switches to the 32-bit Windows driver after it kicks the CPU into protected-mode. Everything is accessible once it switches to the Windows driver, but any files needed for that initial real-mode phase must forever remain below 137GB or the BIOS driver won't be able to reach them. The catch is Windows constantly rewrites and shifts stuff around, so if you have one giant partition, eventually something needed for the initial real-mode phase can migrate to the upper part of the partition. When that happens, Windows fails to boot. It can work fine for months and months, then suddenly one day it will start blue-screening.

The solution is to simply keep the entire OS partition within the lower 137GB. Use the upper part for a data partition. In fact, if you move your MyDocs/Music/Pics folders to the data partition, you probably only need 15-25GB for the OS partition, even including apps.