Memory problem after format & partion problem

[soulja]

well let me start by saying that my original drive had came up an error "hard error" and started beeping, and sounded like it was going down as like its going into standby or sum, this happen before but i always thought a format would help so i tried to format but then said that its not Fat or Fat32 and its the other NFPS and then i created a MS dos partion and formated buy when i tried to install it, then it came up some stuff like i didn't partion it. then i deleted and did again and finally installed windows and then now my new MAXTOR (1 month old) shows up 28.8 GB and its a 40.0 GB drive, i couldn't see the fact of y. so i got the maxtor cd out and it corrected the GB space back to 37.2GB, i don't like it being 37.2GB but thats how windows is then now my memory is that i have 2 memory cards, one is 256 DDR Ram & other is 512 DDR Ram and its in there and it keeps saying low memory and i went into DXdiag and it said that i had 768.0MB for ram but other tab called display said under Approx. total memory for 1.5MB i said thats not true. and windows sees it as 768.0MB but its saying 1.5MB only free. and i keep getting low on memory errors. how can i fix this please !!

[surreal]

Which windows are you running?

[thronka]

You need to reinstall Windows XP and let the program partition it manually. Do a LOW LEVEL FORMAT FIRST to ensure the hard drive is fine. Does the BIOS say it is 768 MB RAM? Your Virtual memory file is too low so reinstall XP and let it do the job.

[soulja]

well how i did it was,


Format
then i opened up FDISK and partioned primarly and then formated and it came up, is that right? and windows sees me as 768MB. and it even does a memory count, but somewhat of windows is not seeing it. like DXdiag sees it as 64.0MB now. after i took my old drive out. and i only currently have my 40.0(37.2GB) in