>>I am going to try and be as detailed as I possibly can, given the
>>limitations
>> of my computer knowledge....
>>
>> I recently rebuilt a computer that I had originally bought from Alienware.
>> It was purchased at some time during 2002. When I rebuilt this computer I
>> purchased a new graphics card (VGA ASUS N7600GS SILENT/HTD/256M R), and a
>> new
>> hard drive (WD 7K 8M ATA100 WD5000JBRTL). It's a 500G drive. My old hard
>> drive was 80G. It might be important to note that the old hard drive was
>> broken. This installation was done on the fresh hard drive, with the old
>> 80G
>> drive and the old video card removed.
>>
>> Anyway, when I first replaced everything I ran into the 137G barrier.
>> Since
>> my Windows Restore CD was pre-SP1, the windows installation process didn't
>> recognize the full 500G. I installed Win XP onto that 137 partition and
>> once
>> it was done I installed all updates, bringing me up to SP3. When I got
>> all
>> of that done, I formated the remaining 300+G. This process made it into a
>> second partition. This was not by choice, but my only option. I didn't
>> want
>> to have 2 separate partitions, but I decided it wasn't worth the hassle of
>> trying to fix and all was right with the world.
>>
>> About 2 weeks later I decided I wanted to back up some of my DVDs onto my
>> hard drive. I downloaded a ripper, and when I went to rip I decided I
>> would
>> put everything onto my larger, unused partition. When i started the rip,
>> my
>> computer would freeze momentarily and then unfreeze. This would happen
>> about
>> every 3 seconds or so. I decided to try and run the rip onto the smaller
>> C:
>> drive that I originally created when I installed XP. Everything worked
>> fine.
>> No stuttering/freezing at all. When this happened I decided I was going
>> to
>> reformat the entire drive as one big drive, using a "slip stream" disk.
>> Basically, what you do is copy your entire (hidden folder.files and all)
>> installation CD to a folder, download windows XP SP2 and add it to that
>> new
>> folder. You then burn the original image from the original CD onto a new
>> disk with the new files (SP2). *Note: This is in no way a workaround to
>> get
>> a free operating system. You still need you product key, which, of course,
>> I
>> do.* The process I used it explain on this site:
>>
http://www.tech-forums.net/showthread.php?threadid=79821.
>>
>> I tested the disc first and it worked fine. So, I reformatted the whole
>> thing. When I ran through the installation process I deleted all of the
>> old
>> partitions and installed onto a new one. Also, this time Windows
>> recognized
>> the entire drive, due to SP2 being installed. I formatted the entire
>> drive
>> (I did NOT use quick format). Windows installed beautifully. I ran
>> through
>> all of the updates and everything seemed to be fine. I installed my
>> drivers
>> with only one problem. The Asus Video Card install gave me the "This
>> software has not been verified as being compatible with WinXP. Do you want
>> to
>> continue?" I clicked yes. *Note: it gave me this same message the first
>> time
>> I installed XP, when I had two different partitions. So I don't think this
>> has anything to do with it, but I will include it to be as detailed as
>> possible.*
>>
>> So, I start downloading my usual software: AVG, Adaware, AIM, PowerMenu,
>> Firefox (sorry microsoft, I still love you). I start installing this
>> stuff
>> and everything goes fine. I restart several times. I then decided to rip
>> a
>> DVD to the 500G C: drive to see if I get the same problem as I had before.
>> Everything goes fine. I install some of the programs I downloaded and I
>> was
>> prompted for a restart. When I restarted the computer it took a solid 4
>> minutes to get past the solid black screen that comes up before the
>> Windows
>> XP loading screen. Once I finally got to my desktop, everything SEEMED
>> fine.
>> So, I restarted again, and I had the same problem. I tried several times,
>> and it was always the same.
>>
>> So, since I had just recently started using PowerMenu I thought maybe that
>> was some sort of Mal-ware and I decided to just reformat the whole thing
>> again (did NOT use quick format). Windows installed fine, I started
>> installing my drivers, and when i was prompted for a restart I did. Same
>> problem, on a fresh format and install. No programs installed whatsover,
>> other than my Nvidia driver. So, here I am. I need some help. I have no
>> idea what's going on. Is it a bad hard drive, with bad sectors? That's
>> the
>> only thing I can think of. It's not unheard of for a new drive to arrive
>> bad.
>>
>> If anyone can provide any advice or information it would be greatly
>> appreciated.
>>
>> *Note: During this process I went into MSCONFIG and made sure that it was
>> in Normal Startup Mode. Everything seemed fine. There were no unusualy
>> (at
>> least not that I know of) programs that were set to load on startup since
>> I
>> hadn't really installed anything.*
