MaximumPC 2004 12

PC. Maxtor’s web site says the

model is a 40.9GB hard drive,

but Windows XP Pro will only

recognize it as a 7.82GB hard

drive. What gives?

—FRANK

You need to update your BIOS. If

you recall, BIOSes made around

1998 were limited to 8GB, but newer

BIOSes upped the limit to 137GB.

Today, as you know, drives are way

bigger than 137GB, so yet another

BIOS update was developed for

support up to 144,000,000GB, which

should cover us for at least the next

decade. Either update your BIOS or

go to http://www.maxtor.com and down-

load Maxblast from the Software

Downloads section. This utility

“breaks the 528MB, 2.1GB, 4.2GB,

8.4GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 137GB capac-

ity barriers,” according to Maxtor.

TRI-MONITORS A REALITY?

I’m currently running two 17-

inch LCD monitors with a PNY

GeForce 6800 GT 256. I wanted

to add a third monitor, so I

bought another 17-inch and then

picked up a GeForce MX4000

128MB PCI. When I started my

computer, my GeForce 6800 was

in 8-bit color mode. I checked

my Device Manager and it said

my 6800 was disabled because no

system resources were available.

I disabled the MX 4000, but

there was no change. Does the

nVidia driver allow just one

videocard at a time? I have an

Abit IC7-G mobo, 1GB RAM, and

a P4 3.2GHz with an 800MHz

frontside bus.

—RUSS MILLER

You’ve discovered the problem

with multiple-monitor support in

Windows today—it’s spotty at best.

In our experience with tri-monitor

rigs, each install goes differently, so

you need to be willing to experiment.

Assuming you’re running Windows

XP (earlier versions of Windows

had even worse multi-mon support),

you should be able to get it working

with minimal fuss. First, make sure

both of your videocards use the same

driver—your two nVidia-powered

cards do for sure.

Next, get the AGP card—usually

a dual-head card—working with two

monitors. This is usually just a mat-

ter of plugging in both displays and

enabling the second monitor on the

Settings tabs of the Display control

panel. Once you have the AGP card

working, install the PCI card, and

then try to get it operating properly.

When your second card is

installed, you may need to rerun

the driver installer program from

your GPU manufacturer. Once that’s

done, reboot, and go into the Device

Manager—right-click My Computer

and go to Properties, then click the

Hardware tab, and click Device

Manager. Make sure the drivers for

both cards are properly installed.

When one card or the other only runs

in 8-bit mode, it usually means the

drivers aren’t properly installed. Once

the drivers are properly installed, try

to enable all three monitors, and set

the proper resolution for each.

If it’s still not right, check the

“Init Video First” setting in your BIOS.

Depending on the videocards and the

mobo, you should test both the AGP

and the PCI setting. Frequently, when

one works, the other won’t. Just make

sure that one of the displays con-

nected to your AGP card is identified

as the primary in Windows XP—you

can do that by right-clicking the

display in the Display control panel’s

Settings tab, and selecting Primary.

Direct3D content will only appear on

the primary display.

SPACING OUT

When my friend built my PC,

he made a 5GB partition for

Windows XP, and a second

partition with the rest of the drive

space. Problem is, when I try to

download Windows updates,

it says there isn’t enough space

available! Is there a way to make

that 5GB partition bigger? I have

approximately 190GB left to play

with on the rest of the hard drive.

—ERIC

The easiest way to increase the

size of a partition is with a utility like

Partition Magic (www.powerquest.

com/partitionmagic). What makes

Partition Magic cool is its near-mag-

ical ability to resize your partitions

on the fly, without having to back up

your data, erase the drive, and rec-

reate the partitions. What’s better,

Partition Magic’s handy wizards will

walk you through the entire process!

If you don’t want to shell out

money for a special program, the

alternative is to back up all your

data, wipe the drive clean, and then

reinstall Windows and all your

software. We think it’s worth the $60

bucks to save all that time. ■

MP3 ID3 ASAP

Is there a program that can

automatically correct wrong/missing

information in MP3 ID3 tags? I

have approximately 4,300 MP3s

and am considering purchasing an

iPod. Before I do, however, I would

like the ID3 tags to display the

correct information. Obviously, with

so many MP3s, this would not be

feasible to do manually.

—JUSTIN BROWN

There are a number of ways to reha-

bilitate your ID3 tags, but no single one

is likely to help for more than 60 or 70

percent of your tracks.

Your first plan of attack should be

an automated ID3 tag editing utility. One

of the Doctor’s favorite such programs

is Tag&Rename ($30, ww w.softpointer.

com/tr.htm). It can convert among vari-

ous tag formats, dig up tag data from

freedb servers, and best of all, it sup-

ports a ridiculous number of formats,

including protected iTunes (M4A) tracks,

and lossless formats like FLAC and Windows Media

Lossless. That’s crazy! There are many freeware

ID3 tag editing utilities that you’ll be able to find

through Google, but none are as comprehensive as

Tag&Rename.

Another approach is an automated tagging appli-

cation like MoodLogic ($40 for 10,000 tracks, (ww w.

moodlogic.com). MoodLogic will sample the tracks

on your hard drive via your net connection, and com-

pare the sample against its own database. When a

match is found, it updates your MP3s with the ID3 tag

information it has on file.

No matter what you do, you’re going to have

orphaned MP3 files. These you can move into a sep-

arate folder for manual tagging later. If your music

library is a complete disaster, filled with incor-

rectly labeled tracks downloaded from file-sharing

services, you may want to consider creating a new

music library, filling it with new rips of your music

with accurate tags, and slowly folding in tracks from

your old collection as you listen to them and manu-

ally update their ID3 tags.

Obviously, once you have your tags straightened

out, you should make a commitment to only import-

ing tracks that have accurate ID3 tags into your

music library.

Just as the female praying mantis can’t help but feast on the body

of its mate, the Doctor is compelled to lord over ailing PCs—in a

good way. If your computer is misbehaving, acting up, or generally

out of whack, send an e-mail to do [email protected] and

the Doc will do all he can to fix your computing problems.

MoodLogic will compare your MP3 files to a data-

base of song signatures and correct your ID3 tags

when there are problems. But it’s not perfect, espe-

cially if you have a large number of mistagged MP3s.

68 MA XIMUMPC DECEMBER 2004