BootCamp Windows RAM Error. Help?

fastmanPro · #1 April 23rd, 2008, 08:09 AM

Hi

I have the new Macbook Pro 2.4GHz with 4GB of RAM. (OSX 10.5.2)
I have installed windows xp professional using BootCamp.
First I noticed some strange setbacks during the installation.
When I chose the default 32GB option partition on BootCamp installation menu it didn't appear the FAT32 option on Windows installation menu. Then... I checked that bootcamp created a windows partition bigger than 32GB. I had to delete that partition and create a new one with a custom size of 30GB to get that FAT32 option. Is this normal ?

Nevertheless the rest of the installation did go well. The windows is running allright. However I just noticed that on windows computer information panel it only detects 3GB of RAM!! That's very weird because I have two slots of 2 GB RAM each. Does anyone have any clue why that happens ??

Thanks!

ElDiabloConCaca · #2 April 23rd, 2008, 02:48 PM

Windows XP 32-bit will only let you use 3GB of RAM... that's a limitation of the Windows software itself, is perfectly normal, and does not indicate anything wrong with anything.

Plenty of articles on this via Google:

http://www.google.com/search?q=windo...ient=firefox-a

Also, the 32GB size limit on hard drive size is imposed by the Windows formatter... FAT32 can be formatted to something bigger than 32GB, but certain Windows versions will only let you format them to a maximum size and will only "see" the partition if it's 32GB or less.

fastmanPro · #3 April 23rd, 2008, 05:33 PM

Thanks for the reply! I didn't know about windows limitation at 3GB.

I did know that windows only allow to format as FAT32 on a 32GB or less partition. The question I made was about that option on bootcamp that allows you to chose a 32GB partition in order to be able to format at FAT32. I chose that option... but I couldn't format as FAT32. I had to chose a custom size of 30GB in order to get a 31,... GB partition and then chose the FAT32 format.

Satcomer · #4 April 23rd, 2008, 07:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastmanPro

Thanks for the reply! I didn't know about windows limitation at 3GB.

I did know that windows only allow to format as FAT32 on a 32GB or less partition. The question I made was about that option on bootcamp that allows you to chose a 32GB partition in order to be able to format at FAT32. I chose that option... but I couldn't format as FAT32. I had to chose a custom size of 30GB in order to get a 31,... GB partition and then chose the FAT32 format.

You can get past the 32G limit if you read the H)WTO threads How to make your Mac OS X recognize, read, and write to NTFS volumes & [HOWTO] Make Windows see HFS+ formatted drives.

Then going NTFS on the Windows partition.