As far as the memory counting up twice that is a BIOS setting. I Can't tell you exactly offhand where its at.... it will be on the same page as where you set things like numlock and detect floppy on start up etc. It will be something like fast POST or Express POST. You want to set it to the fast mode and then it will only check the memory once.
And Billy is correct that even if your old BIOS dosen't recognize the full HDD capacity and let you format it that XP will recognize it and let you format the entire drive.
And depending on the MoBo mfg and how they modified the BIOS to suit themselfs it is probably NOT going to be a just do this or do that solution.
Let me see, you would rather have this system dead for months while you stubbornly wait for a nonexistent solution rather then facing the facts and spending a couple hours watching TV while you reinstall XP?
Inflamitory comment deleted.
I think you mis read the post because your comment was uncalled for.
surreal